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suerte

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word suerte

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
900s Glosas Silenses, spelt sorte More words from the 9th century
Inherited from
Latin sors via Old Spanish
Ultimate origin
Proto-Indo-European *ser-
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin sors
French sort
Spanish suerte
French sorte
Dutch soort
Derivations
From the same root
English consort ← sors
Latin cōnsors ← sors
Latin exsors ← sors
Latin sortiārius ← sors
Latin sortior ← sors

Pronunciation

  • /ˈsweɾte/, [ˈsweɾ.t̪e][1]

Forms

suerte f (plural suertes)[1] Old Spanish has suert, with the final vowel lost, beside suerte; the earliest record has sorte.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish suerte, inherited from Latin sors (“lot”).[2][4][5][1] The Glosas Silenses still write sorte with the Latin vowel; suert, with the diphthong, is found in a charter of 1199, and the present form in Berceo.[2]

The word is shared by all the Romance languages: Portuguese sorte, Galician sorte, Catalan sort, French sort, Italian sorte and Romanian soartă.[2][6][7]

The Latin noun meant a lot, a token drawn in a lottery, or a voting tablet.[8] It goes back to Proto-Italic *sorti- (“joining, joint”), from Proto-Indo-European *sr-ti-, a derivative of the root *ser- (“to bind, join”) of serō (“to link together”).[8][1] The token drawn gave the senses “oracle”, “share allotted by lot” and then “fate, destiny”, “rank, condition” and “kind”.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the gloss sorte in the Glosas Silenses, of the second half of the 10th century.[2][4] Corominas notes that the word has its several modern senses from the start.[2] In the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200) Hebron cayo en suert a Caleph “fell by lot to Caleb”, and in Alfonso X's Estoria de España (1270–1284) a queen is chosen por suert “by lot”.[10][11]

Semantic evolution

From “lot” the word passed to the plot of farmland marked off by its boundaries, recorded from a charter of 1212 and the Fuero Juzgo.[2][4] Corominas sees in it the land that fell to someone in a division by lot, though it may also continue the Latin sense “capital, sum invested”.[2] In the Canaries suerte is still a small plot of land, recorded in Gran Canaria and Tenerife from 1492 on.[12]

Covarrubias (1611) gives it as “good or bad fortune” and the phrase echar suertes “to cast lots”.[13] Autoridades adds the senses “kind, sort” (toda suerte de armas) and “manner” (de qué suerte), and in the Americas de suerte que “so that” and de todas suertes “of every kind” are recorded from 1516 and 1532.[14][15] The modern dictionary also lists the drawing of lots for military service, the bullfighter's passes (suerte de varas, suerte de matar) and a printing term.[5]

In Peru suerte is a lottery or a lottery ticket; in Colombia and Paraguay a white spot on a fingernail.[16] Tagalog and Cebuano borrowed it as swerte (“luck”).[1]

Timeline

  • 900s – the Glosas Silenses write sorte.[2][4]
  • 1199 – suert in a charter.[2]
  • c. 1200 – cayo en suert in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy).[10]
  • 1212 – first record of the sense “plot of farmland”.[2][4]
  • c. 1230 – suerte in Berceo.[2][10]
  • 1513 – Nebrija's Vocabulario gives Latin sors and sortitio.[17]
  • 1516 – first record in the Americas, de todas suertes, in Puerto Rico.[15]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias records echar suertes.[13]
  • 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology “Del lat. sors, sortis”.[18]

Meanings

Noun

  1. chance: the chain of events seen as fortuitous: La suerte quiso que nos encontráramos allí.[5][1]
  2. luck, good or bad: Ha tenido muy mala suerte con el coche.[5][1]
  3. Good luck: ¡Que tengas suerte![5][1]
  4. fate: what happens or may happen to someone: Nadie sabe cuál será su suerte.[5][1]
  5. The chance used to decide something; a lot: echar algo a suertes.[5][1]
  6. The drawing of lots for military service.[5]
  7. State, condition: gente de humilde suerte.[5]
  8. kind, sort: toda suerte de herramientas.[5][1]
  9. Manner, way: de esta suerte, de suerte que.[5]
  10. A plot of farmland separated from others by its boundaries.[5][2]
  11. (printing) The set of types cast in one matrix.[5]
  12. (bullfighting) Each of the passes made by the bullfighter: suerte de varas.[5][1]
  13. (Peru) A lottery; a lottery ticket.[16][1]
  14. (Colombia, Paraguay) A small white spot on a fingernail.[16][1]

Word family

  • sortear
  • sorteo
  • suertudo
  • suertero
  • sortija
  • consorte
  • sortilegio
  • Latin sors
  • Portuguese sorte

Usage notes

Common phrases are por suerte “luckily”, buena suerte, mala suerte, probar suerte “to try one's luck” and echar a suertes “to draw lots”.[1][5] The interjection ¡suerte! means “good luck!”.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 330
  3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. suerte
  4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. suerte
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. suerte
  6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. sors
  7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 6242
  8. ^ 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
  9. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. suerte
  10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. suerte
  11. ^ 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. suerte
  12. ^ 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. suerte
  13. ^ 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. 1310
  14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. suerte
  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. suerte
  16. ^ 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. suerte
  17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 419
  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. 995

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Suerte.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/suerte. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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