sugerir

Forms

sugerir (first-person singular present sugiero, first-person singular preterite sugerí, past participle sugerido)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin suggerō (“to put under; to supply, prompt”), a learned word.^[2][3][1] Corominas dates it from 1685 and treats it in the family of gesto, whose Latin source is the verb gerō (“to carry, bear”).^[4][2] Vox describes it as a 17th-century borrowing.^[5]

The Latin verb is a compound of sub- (“under”), assimilated before ⟨g⟩, and the verb for “to carry”.^[6][7][8] Besides its literal senses “to put or carry under” and “to heap up, build”, it meant “to supply, provide” and “to add, put next”, and in Late and Medieval Latin “to point out, make known”.^[9][10][7] De Vaan traces the simple verb to Proto-Italic *gezō and Proto-Indo-European *h₂ǵ-es- (“to carry”), an extension in /s/ of the root of agō (“to drive”), an analysis that has gained acceptance with the laryngeal theory.^[11]

The same Latin verb was borrowed as Portuguese sugerir, Catalan suggerir, French suggérer and Italian suggerire.^[1][12][13] The French verb is recorded about 1380 in an older shape and was refashioned in 1403.^[14] The Portuguese verb is a 17th-century word, as in Spanish.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso de Palencia's Latin–Spanish dictionary of 1490 uses the participle sugeridas in explaining a Latin word.^[15] Rodrigo Fernández de Santaella's church vocabulary of 1499 renders a Latin verb as meter dentro o por enseñar o sugerir, “to put inside, or to teach or suggest”.^[15] In the prose of San Juan de la Cruz, about 1578, the devil suele él sugerir y poner gusto, “is wont to suggest and instil pleasure” in the senses: the sense is “to put a thought into someone's mind”.^[15]

Semantic evolution

Corominas's first record is in a chronicle by Alcázar of 1685, the passage that Autoridades quotes: the devil le sugería ... la amable libertad del siglo, “prompted in him the sweet freedom of worldly life”.^[4][16] Autoridades in 1739 gave two senses, “to point out or remind someone of something” and “to induce or instigate to an evil deed”, and the Academy kept both through the 19th century.^[16][17][18] In 1899 it rewrote the definition as putting an idea into someone's mind by hinting or inspiring it, good or bad.^[19] In the Americas the word is recorded from 1746 in Mexico, again of the devil's promptings.^[20]

Today the first sense is “to propose, advise”, and the second “to evoke, call to mind”.^[3] Moliner adds the sense of a thing vaguely resembling another that it recalls.^[21] For the noun sugestión, which is much older (about 1440), parts of the Americas, including Argentina, prefer sugerencia in the sense “something suggested”.^[4][2]

Timeline

• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario has the participle sugeridas.^[15]
• 1499 – Fernández de Santaella's Vocabulario eclesiástico uses sugerir to gloss a Latin verb.^[15]
• c. 1578 – San Juan de la Cruz uses it in the Subida del Monte Carmelo and the Noche oscura.^[15]
• 1685 – Corominas's first record, in a chronicle by Alcázar.^[4][2]
• 1739 – Autoridades defines it as “to remind of something” and “to instigate to evil”.^[16]
• 1746 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico.^[20]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the modern definition, “to put an idea into someone's mind”.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. To suggest, propose or advise something: Te sugiero que descanses un poco.^[3][1]
2. To evoke, call to mind or make one think of something: Este olor me sugiere el verano.^[3][21]
3. To hint at or put an idea into someone's mind without stating it fully.^[21][5]

Word family

• sugerente
• sugerencia
• sugeridor

Related words

• sugestión
• sugestivo
• gesto
• Latin suggerō
• French suggérer

Usage notes

Sugerir is irregular like sentir or hervir: sugiero, sugirió.^[21][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sugerir
3. ^ 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. sugerir
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 146
5. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. sugerir
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. sugerir
7. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. sugerir
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3176
13. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. suggerir
14. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. suggérer
15. ^ 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. sugerir
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 180
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 681
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 727
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 933
20. ^ 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. sugerir
21. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sugerir