sobreseer

Forms

sobreseer (first-person singular present sobreseo, first-person singular preterite sobreseí, past participle sobreseído)^[1]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Latin supersedeō (“to sit upon; to refrain from”).^[2][1][3] Vox calls it an inherited word of the family of sentar.^[3] The Latin verb is formed from super- (“over”) and sedeō (“to sit”).^[1][4] In Latin it meant “to sit on top of” and, figuratively, “to abstain from, give up”;^[4][5] Medieval Latin also used it for failing to pay a due on time or to attend a court.^[4][5]

Echegaray compared Catalan sobreseure, French surseoir and Italian soprassedere.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the CDH without a later copy is a document of the cathedral of León (1419–1426), which asks the alcaldes to suspend the case, que sobresean en tanto e que non conosçan el dicho pleito “that they hold off meanwhile and not hear the said suit”.^[7] DICCA-XV dates the word 1413 in its own corpus and reports a CORDE date of 1256.^[8] HSMS has it first in a manuscript dated 1401–1500, Martín Pérez's Diccionario eclesiástico.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In 15th-century writers it meant “to refrain from, leave off”: Enrique de Villena (1427–1428) sobreseo de lo exponer “I refrain from explaining it”, and Santillana tells Livy to give way (sobresea) in lamenting the Roman women after Cannae.^[7] Nebrija gave Latin supersedeo as its equivalent.^[8][10]

Autoridades defined it as to give up a claim or undertaking, quoting Illescas on lay judges ordered to stay proceedings against heretics.^[11] The Academy's 1843 dictionary added “to cease a procedure, mostly in legal use”, and the 1899 edition “to cease fulfilling an obligation”.^[12][13] It was intransitive in these dictionaries; today it is transitive, and the legal sense is to end criminal or disciplinary proceedings without ruling on the merits.^[2][14] In the Americas it is recorded in Mexico City from 1532, where officials hold off compliance until they have reported to the king.^[15]

Timeline

• 1401–1500 – HSMS's first record, in a manuscript of Martín Pérez's Diccionario eclesiástico.^[9]
• 1413 – DICCA-XV's first date.^[8]
• 1419–1426 – a document of the cathedral of León, the CDH's first record without a later copy.^[7]
• 1427–1428 – Enrique de Villena uses it for “to refrain from”.^[7]
• 1490 – Segura's first date.^[16]
• 1532 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City.^[15]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as “to give up a claim”.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the Latin etymology and the noun sobreseimiento.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. To stop meeting a payment or financial obligation.^[2][3]
2. (law) To dismiss a case; to end criminal or disciplinary proceedings without a ruling on the merits: La jueza sobreseyó la causa contra los dos acusados.^[2][14]

Word family

• sobreseimiento

Related words

• sentar
• Latin supersedeō
• French surseoir

Usage notes

It is conjugated like leer: sobreseyó, sobreseído.^[14][1] Moliner notes both sobreseer la causa and the less frequent sobreseer en la causa.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. sobreseer
3. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. sobreseer
4. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. supersedeō
5. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. supersedere
6. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 357
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. sobreseer
8. ^ 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. sobreseer
9. ^ a b Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
10. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 417
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 131
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 672
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 921
14. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sobreseer
15. ^ a b 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. sobreseer
16. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 731
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 983