sobriedad

Forms

sobriedad f (uncountable)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin sōbrietās (“sobriety”), the abstract noun of sōbrius (“sober”).^[2][3][1] The BDELC treats it as a derivative under sobrio and dates it 1490.^[4]

The same Latin noun gave Portuguese sobriedade, Catalan sobrietat, French sobriété and Italian sobrietà.^[5][6][7]

The Latin noun is formed from the adjective with the suffix -tās.^[8] De Vaan explains the adjective as the negative prefix sē- added to the ancestor of ēbrius (“drunk”), so that it first meant “away from drunkenness”.^[9][1] The long vowel of its first syllable is not fully explained.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is a Castilian Libro del Tesoro in a Girona manuscript of 1400–1425, whose table of contents lists a chapter de sobriedat under temperance.^[10] DEMel dates the glossary of the Libro del Tesoro to the end of the 13th century, from a secondary source.^[11] Enrique de Villena uses it in 1417 beside tenprança “temperance”, and an early 15th-century lapidary says a stone gives its wearer sobriedad e mesura “sobriety and moderation”.^[10][3]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval texts the word names one of the virtues that belong to temperance, beside chastity and continence.^[10] Autoridades (1739) defines it as the virtue of temperance and moderation, used chiefly of drinking, and the Academy kept this definition, adding eating in 1843.^[12][13][14] Terreros added a figurative sense, “moderation, discretion”.^[15] Since 1899 the Academy has defined it simply as the quality of being sobrio.^[16][2]

Timeline

• 1400–1425 – the Libro del Tesoro of the Girona manuscript, the CDH's first hit.^[10]
• Before 1409 – Francisco Imperial lists Sobriedat among the daughters of Temperance (in a copy of c. 1465).^[10]
• 1417 – Enrique de Villena, Los doze trabajos de Hércules, DICCA-XV's first record.^[10][3]
• 1490 – the BDELC's date.^[4][17]
• 1739 – Autoridades defines it as the virtue of moderation, chiefly in drinking.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin and the definition “quality of being sober”.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. sobriety, temperance: the quality of being sobrio, moderate, especially in eating and drinking: Come y bebe con sobriedad.^[2][1][18]

Related words

• sobrio
• ebrio
• Latin sōbrius

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. sobriedad
3. ^ 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. sobriedad
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sobrio
5. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 359
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3127
7. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. sobrietat
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. sōbrietās
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. sobriedad
11. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. sobriedad
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 132
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 808
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 672
15. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 512
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 922
17. ^ 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. 211
18. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1578