sobornar

Forms

sobornar (first-person singular present soborno, first-person singular preterite soborné, past participle sobornado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin subōrnō (“to equip; to prepare in secret”).^[2][3][1] Wiktionary suggests the prefix was adapted to the native so-, and lists the variant subornar.^[1] The REW records the verb in the senses “to bribe” and “to seduce” in Spanish and Portuguese.^[4]

The Latin verb is formed of sub- and ōrnō (“to equip, prepare”).^[5][1] The OLD's senses run from “to supply, equip” and “to dress up” to “to prepare, instruct for a secret or underhand purpose”.^[5] Gómez de Silva explains the prefix as “secretly, from below”.^[6] The simple verb itself comes from ōrdō (“order”).^[5][1] Wiktionary gives English suborn as a cognate.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates sobornar to 1495, in Nebrija.^[2] The CDH has it a century earlier, in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Gran crónica de España (1376–1391): reçelaua que los moros los auian sobornado por alguna grant cuantia de doblas “he feared that the Moors had bribed them with some great sum of doblas”.^[7] The DEMel's earliest record, from a primary source, is dated 1263.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The verb meant “to bribe” from the start, often of witnesses: an ordinance of 1397 punishes whoever corrupts or bribes a witness.^[7] Covarrubias in 1611 explained it as persuading someone to vote or testify in one's favour by gifts received secretly.^[9] He explained the word as quasi sub ornar.^[9] The Autoridades defined it as persuading someone with an interest given in secret.^[10] By 1869 the Academy defined it as corrupting someone with gifts.^[11] Moliner notes a humorous use for winning someone over with small presents.^[12]

Timeline

• 1376–1391 – first record, in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Gran crónica de España.^[7]
• 1397 – an ordinance punishes the bribing of witnesses.^[7]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin suborno for sobornar.^[13] The noun soborno is recorded in the same year.^[2]
• 1528 – first record in the Americas, in Nicaragua.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it and derives it from sub ornar.^[9]
• 1739 – the Autoridades defines it.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin subornare.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To bribe: to give someone money or presents to obtain something unlawfully: Intentaron sobornar al juez con un coche nuevo.^[3][1]
2. (transitive, formal) To suborn, to induce a witness to give false testimony.^[1][9]

Word family

• soborno
• sobornable
• insobornable

Related words

• ornar
• adornar
• Latin ōrnō
• English suborn

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ornar
3. ^ a b 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. sobornar
4. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 651
7. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. sobornar
8. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. sobornar
9. ^ a b c d Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1303
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 125
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 716
12. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sobornar
13. ^ 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. sobornar
14. ^ 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. sobornar
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 981