sitio

Forms

sitio m (plural sitios)^[1] The older form is sito, in the Libro de Alexandre and still in Alfonso de Palencia.^[2][3] The Canarian records of the 16th century also write citio, çitio and sytio.^[4]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain: Corominas and Pascual consider it probably a semi-learned alteration, inherited from Latin situs (“position, site”), pointing to the late first records, the old variant sito and its legal and abstract senses.^[2][3] The ending -io may come from asedio (“siege”), from obsidium, or from the verb sitiar.^[2][3] The DLE and Wiktionary also give the Latin noun, influenced by the verb.^[5][1] The few medieval records suggest an occasional word, either an unadapted learned word or one from Occitan and Catalan that had reached Aragon.^[2] García de Diego instead lists noun and verb under a Germanic verb meaning “to settle”.^[6]

The sense “siege” is a postverbal noun from Spanish sitiar, first recorded in 1495.^[3][7] The verb, which in Catalan and Occitan also meant “to seat”, is explained as an Occitan adaptation of Late Latin situō (“to place”), and its sense was shaped by asediar.^[2][3]

Related words in other languages are Portuguese sítio, of similar history, French site and Italian sito.^[2][8][9] The Latin noun is the action noun of sinō (“to leave, let be; to place”), which goes back to Proto-Italic *sine/o- (“to put in place”) and Proto-Indo-European *tḱei- (“to build”).^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Libro de Alexandre (c. 1250) describes Gaza as a rich city de syto e de obra e de toda bondat “in site and in building and in every good thing”.^[2] The CDH has sitio in 1296, in documents on the surrender of Elche to the King of Aragon, in the military sense: Dada en el sitio delche “given at the siege of Elche”.^[12] An Aragonese inventory of 1331, the DCECH's first record of sitio, uses it for “seats”: VII sitios de fust para posar “seven wooden seats to sit on”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija already has both senses: sitio for the seat of a place (Latin situs) and for the siege of a place (Latin obsidio).^[13][14] In the Golden Age the word was well established, but Covarrubias and the Diccionario de Autoridades still give only the abstract sense “the place or ground that a body occupies”, beside the siege.^[2][15] The full synonymy with lugar “place” belonged then to plain and familiar speech, as in Cervantes: No está muy lexos de aquí un sitio donde….^[2][16]

Administrative and legal senses lived on: the Real Sitio of La Granja or Aranjuez, a royal country residence, and bienes sitios “real estate”, recorded in 1742.^[2] In Argentina sitio is a building plot, in Cuba a small farm, and in Mexico a taxi rank.^[2][17][18] The DLE now also has sitio web, short sitio, “website”.^[5][1]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – the Libro de Alexandre has the form sito.^[2][3]
• 1296 – documents on the surrender of Elche use sitio for a siege.^[12]
• 1331 – an Aragonese inventory has sitios “seats”.^[2]
• 1495 – Nebrija's Vocabulario has sitio both for the seat of a place and for a siege.^[3][13]
• 1526 – the first record from the Americas, in Honduras.^[19]
• 1611 – sitiar “to besiege” is first recorded.^[3]
• 1742 – bienes sitios “real estate” in the Autos acordados.^[2]
• 1846 – Salvá records the Cuban sense “cattle farm”.^[20]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin situs.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. A space that something occupies or could occupy: No queda sitio en el armario.^[5][1]
2. A place or piece of ground suited to something: Buscamos un buen sitio para acampar.^[5][22]
3. A country house or estate of a notable person; a royal one is a real sitio.^[5]
4. A siege: el sitio de Zaragoza.^[5][1]
5. (computing) A website, short for sitio web.^[5][1]
6. (Cuba) A small farm for crops and domestic animals.^[5][17]
7. (Mexico) An authorised taxi rank.^[5][18]
8. (Argentina, Chile, Guatemala) A vacant lot in a town.^[17][1]

Word family

• sitiero
• sitio web

Related words

• sitiar
• situar
• situación
• sitial
• Latin situs
• Portuguese sítio

Usage notes

Phrases include dejar a uno en el sitio “to kill someone on the spot”, poner sitio a “to lay siege to” and estado de sitio “state of siege”.^[21][13][1] The Mexican taxi sense is recorded by Santamaría in 1945 newspaper text.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 265
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sitio
4. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. sitio
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. sitio
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6171
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 715
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. site
9. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. situs
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. situs
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. sinō
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. sitio
13. ^ a b c Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. sitio
14. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 417
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 122
16. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 1039
17. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. sitio
18. ^ a b c Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 977
19. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. sitio
20. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 1002
21. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 919
22. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. sitio