tener

Forms

tener (first-person singular present tengo, first-person singular preterite tuve, past participle tenido)^[1] Old Spanish had the future terné and the past subjunctive toviesse.^[2][3] The voseo imperative is tené in Argentina.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tenēre (“to hold, occupy; to keep”), Old Spanish tener “to hold”.^[5][6][7][1] The preterite tuve took its ⟨u⟩ from hube of the near synonym haber.^[1]

The main event in its history is that it took over from habere the sense of plain possession.^[5] This is an innovation of the three Ibero-Romance languages, found in all of them in the Middle Ages, and also in Sardinia and in the dialects of Lazio, Abruzzo, Apulia and other parts of southern Italy.^[5] In Castilian aver kept this sense through most of the Middle Ages, but tener already has it now and then from the beginning, in the Cid and Berceo, and perhaps once in the Glosas Emilianenses.^[5] Corominas finds the roots of the change in Latin tenere used almost as habere by the Hispanic writers Orientius and Aetheria, though not only by Spaniards.^[5] According to the BDELC tener began to replace haber in the 12th century but became general in this sense only in the 16th.^[6]

The same verb is Portuguese ter, Galician ter, Catalan tenir, French tenir, Italian tenere and Romanian ține.^[8][9][1] French, Catalan and some Occitan and northern Italian dialects moved it into the verbs in -ir.^[10] ter came through the forms tẽer and teer.^[11]

teneō goes back to Proto-Italic *tenēō, a stative of Proto-Indo-European *ten- “to stretch, draw”, the root of Ancient Greek τείνω (teínō).^[1] De Vaan reconstructs *tn-eh₁- “to hold”.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to the Glosas Emilianenses, in the middle of the 10th century.^[5][6] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) already uses it of possession: „Tiene dos arcas llenas de oro esmerado” “He has two chests full of pure gold”.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

In the Cid it means “to hold fast”, “to possess”, “to be provided with” and “to defend a position”, and tener tuerto a uno is “to wrong someone”.^[13] Berceo also uses it for “to consider oneself” and “to maintain, hold an opinion”.^[14] Alfonso X's Lapidario has the senses “to hold”, “to possess”, “to sustain” and “to contain”.^[15] Bénaben describes Old Spanish haber as the verb of acquiring and inherent possession and tener as that of holding.^[16]

Nebrija glosses it with both Latin teneō and habeō, and Percyvall in 1591 translates “to hold, to have”.^[17][18] Autoridades listed it as an auxiliary equal to haber, and as “to possess and enjoy”.^[19] Alemany in 1917 recorded the construction with que and an infinitive (tiene que oír).^[20] In Puerto Rico tener alone means “to be rich”.^[21][22]

Timeline

• c. 950 – the Glosas Emilianenses, Corominas's first record.^[5][6]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses it for possession.^[2][5]
• c. 1180 – the Auto de los Reyes Magos has the future terné.^[2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for holding, possessing and containing.^[15]
• 1493 – the first record from the Americas.^[23]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin teneo and habeo.^[24]
• 1500s – it becomes the general verb of possession.^[6]
• 1596 – the derivative tenedor is first recorded in the sense “fork”.^[5]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives its etymology, Latin tenere.^[25]

Meanings

Verb

1. To hold, grasp: Tenme el paraguas un momento.^[7][1]
2. To have, possess: Tiene dos coches.^[7][1]
3. To hold up, keep in place; also reflexive, to stand up: El anciano apenas se tenía en pie.^[7]
4. To contain: La caja tiene diez botellas.^[7][1]
5. To keep (one's word or promise): tener la palabra.^[7]
6. To have (a duty or engagement): Hoy tengo clase.^[7]
7. With por, to consider, regard as: La tienen por muy lista.^[7]
8. With en and mucho or poco, to value highly or little.^[7]
9. To spend (a period of time) in some way: Tuvimos un viaje tranquilo.^[7]
10. To feel, experience: Tengo frío.^[7][1]
11. To be (a number of years) old: Mi hija tiene doce años.^[1]
12. With que and an infinitive, to have to: Tengo que salir.^[1]

Word family

• tenedor
• teniente
• tenencia
• entretener

Related words

• abstener
• atener
• contener
• detener
• mantener
• obtener
• retener
• sostener
• haber
• pertenecer
• tenaz
• tenor
• Latin teneo

Usage notes

Unlike English “have”, tener is not the auxiliary of the perfect tenses, which use haber, though Autoridades still recorded it in that function.^[19][1] Many set phrases are built on it: tener lugar “to take place”, tener en cuenta “to take into account”, tener razón “to be right”.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. tener
3. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 242
4. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 471
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 461
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tener
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. tener
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6636
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 8, 415
11. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ter
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. teneo
13. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 455
14. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 744
15. ^ a b 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. tener
16. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. tener
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 421
18. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 220
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 247
20. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1571
21. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. tener
22. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. tener
23. ^ 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. tener
24. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (c. 1495), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca (facsimile, Madrid: Real Academia Española 1951), p. 195
25. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1017