soldado

Forms

soldado m or f (plural soldados)^[1][2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian soldato (“a hired fighter”), the past participle used as a noun of soldare (“to hire for pay”), from soldo (“pay”), because the soldier's trade was a mercenary one.^[3][4][5][6] The Italian word is recorded from the 14th century and also passed into French and the other European languages.^[3][7] Wiktionary sees the Spanish form as an adaptation of the Italian to the native words sueldo “pay” and soldada “wages”.^[1]

The Academy derives it instead from Medieval Latin solidātus, from Latin solidus in the sense “pay”.^[2] Medieval Latin had solidatus and soldatus for a mercenary.^[8] Corominas notes that Old Spanish had its own words: soldadero for a mercenary, and a rare verb soldar (“to pay a soldier”).^[3] The Latin word, the adjective “solid” used as a noun, named a gold coin in Late Latin, and then the pay of mercenaries.^[3][7]

The same Italian word gave French soldat (1475) and Portuguese soldado.^[7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is Juan de Lucena, in 1463, writing of Sicily, where the word means a mercenary.^[3][4] Nebrija's dictionary of about 1495 has it, in the misprint soldadado, for Latin mercenarius, stipendiatus.^[3][10] The CDH's earlier hits are participles of soldar “to join”, for metal and broken bones, and of the rare old verb “to pay”, which Corominas cites from the Libro de Apolonio; he holds that the noun did not yet exist in 14th-century Castilian.^[11][3]

Semantic evolution

Boscán still avoided the word about 1530, rendering Castiglione's soldato as hombre de guerra or guerrero, though he uses soldado once in a while.^[3] By about 1600 it was in general use with a noble, laudatory tone that left out the idea of a hired man, as the Quijote and Covarrubias show;^[3][4] Corominas dates the general sense “man of war” to the end of the 16th century.^[3][4] Covarrubias describes the soldier as a gentleman who serves on foot with pike or arquebus, and derives the word from sueldo.^[12]

Autoridades separated the man who serves in the army, the private without rank (soldado raso), the brave and skilled fighter, and, metaphorically, the Christian enlisted under the banners of Christ.^[13] The current dictionary treats it as a noun of common gender, el soldado and la soldado, and adds the figurative “supporter of a cause”.^[2]

The name is also given to animals: soldier ants or termites, a hermit crab in Honduras and Mexico, and in the Canaries a fish like the sole.^{[6][14][15][16]} From Spanish it passed into Basque, Tagalog and Cebuano.^[1]

Timeline

• 1463 – Juan de Lucena, the first record, for a mercenary.^[3][4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin mercenarius.^[10][3]
• 1525 – first record in the Americas, in Panama.^[17]
• 1596 – first record of the derivative soldadesca.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from sueldo.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “De sueldo”.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. A soldier: a person who serves in the army: Los soldados desfilaron por la avenida.^[2][19][1]
2. A private, a soldier without rank (also soldado raso).^[2][19]
3. A person brave or skilled in war.^[2][13]
4. (figurative) A person who serves or supports a cause or someone; a partisan: un soldado de la libertad.^[2][19]
5. (zoology) A member of the soldier caste of ants or termites.^[6]
6. (Honduras) A hermit crab.^[14]

Word family

• soldadesca
• soldadesco

Related words

• sueldo
• soldada
• Italian soldato
• French soldat

Usage notes

Soldado is also the past participle of soldar “to weld, solder”, which goes back to Latin solidō (“to make solid”).^[3][20] Set phrases include soldado raso “private” and soldado de Pavía, a strip of battered fried cod.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. soldado
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 325
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sueldo
5. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
6. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. soldado
7. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. soldado
10. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 417
11. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. soldado
12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1305
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 139
14. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. soldado
15. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 981
16. ^ 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. soldado
17. ^ 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. soldado
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 985
19. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. soldado
20. ^ Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. soldar