tentar

Forms

tentar (first-person singular present tiento, first-person singular preterite tenté, past participle tentado)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote temptar and tenptar.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish tentar, inherited from Latin temptō (“to touch, feel; to try; to tempt”).^[3][4][1] The Latin verb was also spelt tentō, the form the DLE gives.^[5] Corominas notes that the spelling with ⟨mpt⟩ is the more frequent and better-attested one, and that the verb seems to have nothing to do with teneō (“to hold”) in origin.^[3][5] The stressed ⟨e⟩ diphthongises in the present (⟨tiento⟩, ⟨tienta⟩), as it already does in the Quijote, and Corominas believes it did so throughout the Middle Ages.^[3]

The same word is Portuguese tentar, Galician tentar, Catalan temptar and Italian tentare.^[3][6][1] In Catalan and Occitan it has almost only the moral and religious sense, so Corominas takes it there as a learned word, as its spelling with ⟨mpt⟩ suggests.^[3] The French verb tenter was taken from Latin in the 12th century.^[7]

De Vaan explains the Latin verb as an iterative built on a past participle Proto-Italic *tempto- of a verb “to touch, feel”, and finds the root Proto-Indo-European *temp- (“to stretch”) a good candidate; he finds Szemerényi's root *(s)temb- (“to shake violently”) less likely.^[8] Lewis and Short derived it from tendō (“to stretch”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is in La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), where Isaac feels his son with his hands: „quando lo entendio, legolo assi e tentolo” “when he heard him, he drew him near and felt him”.^[9] The sense “to tempt” is in Berceo, who asks that the evil enemy may not tempt the faithful: „Que el mal enemigo non los pueda tentar”.^[10] Corominas gives Berceo as the first record.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish already had the senses “to touch”, “to try to do something” and “to tempt”, and all of them have lasted.^[3] Alfonso X uses the verb for touching a stone and for testing a person's constancy.^[11] Covarrubias gives tentar el vado, to sound the ford before crossing it.^[12] The Diccionario de Autoridades distinguishes touching, groping for what cannot be seen as the blind do, and instigating someone.^[13]

Two technical senses come from the noun tienta: in surgery, to probe a wound with the instrument of that name, now disused, and in bullfighting, to test young cattle for their courage.^[5][14] In El Salvador, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay tentarse means to feel a strong urge for something and try to get it.^[15] In Leonese it also means to pester someone again and again.^[16] The first record from the Americas is from Mexico City in 1532.^[17]

Timeline

• 11th–12th century – a Mozarabic future temtaráy “I will try” is in a kharja.^[3][4]
• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy) has „tentolo” “he felt him”.^[9]
• 13th century – Berceo uses tentar for “to tempt”;^[10] Corominas takes him as the first record.^[3][10]
• c. 1240–1272 – Herman el Alemán's Psalter: „Pruéuame & tiéntame” “prove me and try me”.^[9]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for touching a stone.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it with Latin tento and pertento.^[18]
• 1532 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records tentar el vado.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. tentare”.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To touch or feel something or someone with the hands; also reflexive: Tentó la tela para saber si era lana.^[5][1]
2. To explore by touch what cannot be seen, to grope.^[5]
3. To tempt, entice or incite: Me tienta la idea de dejarlo todo.^[5][1]
4. To try, attempt; intentar.^[5]
5. To test, try out or examine.^[5]
6. To put someone to the test, trying their constancy or strength.^[5]
7. (bullfighting) To test a young bull or heifer for courage in a tienta.^[5]
8. (medicine, obsolete) To probe a wound with a surgical probe.^[5]

Word family

• tentación
• tentador
• tentativa
• tienta
• tiento
• retentar
• destentar
• tentadero
• desatentar

Related words

• Latin temptō
• Portuguese tentar

Usage notes

Tentar is irregular in the present: tiento, tientas, tienta.^[1][3] Set phrases include tentar a la suerte “to tempt fate” and tentarse la ropa “to think twice”.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. tentar
3. ^ 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, 465
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tentar
5. ^ 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. tentar
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. temptare
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ 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. tentar
10. ^ a b c Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 746
11. ^ 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. tentar
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. 1324
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 250
14. ^ a b 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
15. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. tentar
16. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. tentar
17. ^ 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. tentar
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 421