tiempo

Forms

tiempo m (plural tiempos)^[1] Early texts write tempo (Fuero de Avilés, 1155) and timpo (Auto de los Reyes Magos); the DEMel also records tienpo and tyempo.^[2][3] Medieval texts keep a singular tiempos, as in a tiempos “at a future time” in the Fueros de Aragón of about 1300.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish tiempo, inherited from Latin tempus (“time”), continuing the Latin accusative, which had the same form as the nominative.^[2][4][5][1] The regular outcome would have been a singular ending in -s; because such singulars were rare in Castilian (Corominas compares huebos and peños), a new singular was soon made, already found in Berceo.^[2] Lanchetas notes that Latin neuters of this kind were treated like nouns of the second declension, as in cuerpo and pecho.^[6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese tempo, Galician tempo, Asturian tiempu, Catalan temps, French temps, Italian tempo and Romanian timp.^[7][8][9] Nascentes explains the Portuguese word the same way, from a form ending in -s that was felt as a plural.^[10]

De Vaan derives tempus from *tempos “stretch, measure” and Proto-Indo-European *tempos (“stretch”), with a development “what is stretched” > “stretch of time” > “time, occasion”.^[11][1] Wiktionary also gives a second proposal, from *temh₁- (“to cut”), as “a section” of time, and the OLD calls the origin doubtful.^[1][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Fuero de Avilés of 1155 has the form tempo, and the form tiempo appears in a charter of 1200 and in Berceo.^[2][4] The Fuero de Madrid, a text of 1141–1235 known from a copy of the first half of the 13th century, says that the fuero was made „en el tyempo quando Iohan Gonzaluez” was in office, and the Liber regum (c. 1194–1211) writes „En aquel tiempo prophetizauan Samuel & Gad & Nathan” “at that time Samuel, Gad and Nathan prophesied”.^[13] The Cortes of Benavente of 1202 are the earliest text with the word that is not known from a later copy.^[13]

Semantic evolution

In Alfonso X's prose the word already means “duration”, “the age in which someone lives”, “season of the year” and “age, time of life”.^[14] Latin distinguished tempus from tempestas for the weather, but neither Spanish nor the other Romance languages have ever separated the two ideas by different words;^[15] Corominas points out that the same merger is found in Modern Greek, Irish, Breton and Romanian, and that among the Romance languages only Sursilvan Romansh, under German influence, keeps them apart.^[2] Medieval Latin tempus already meant “weather”.^[15]

Covarrubias (1611) lists tener tiempo, llegar a tiempo, dar tiempo al tiempo and hacer buen tiempo or mal tiempo, and notes the use of the word in music, fencing and ball games.^[16] Autoridades defined it as the successive duration of things, divided into present, past and future, and as each of the four seasons.^[17] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 adds the weather (hace buen tiempo) and the state of public affairs; the 1869 edition adds the stages in which an action such as a military drill is performed.^[18][19] The current dictionary defines time as a physical magnitude whose unit is the second, and has the grammatical sense “tense”.^[5]

In Honduras tiempo is each of the three daily meals, and in New Mexico it can mean a menstrual period.^[20][21] Malaret recorded the Mexican comprar al tiempo “to buy crops before they are harvested” and the saying con el tiempo y un ganchito, hasta las verdes se alcanzan of Colombia, Mexico and Puerto Rico.^[22]

Timeline

• 1141–1235 – the Fuero de Madrid has tyempo (in a copy of the first half of the 13th century).^[13]
• 1155 – Corominas's first record, the form tempo in the Fuero de Avilés.^[2][4]
• 1200 – the form tiempo in a charter.^[2]
• 1202 – the Cortes of Benavente, the earliest text with the word in a contemporary copy.^[13]
• 1259 – “the age in which someone lives” in Alfonso X's Libro de las cruces.^[14]
• c. 1300 – the old singular tiempos in the Fueros de Aragón.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin tempus and tempestas.^[23]
• 1512 – the first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico, of fair weather for sailing.^[24]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records dar tiempo al tiempo.^[16]
• 1684 – first record of contratiempo.^[4]
• 1732 – first record of entretiempo.^[4]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, “Del lat. tempus”.^[25]

Meanings

Noun

1. time: the duration of things that are subject to change.^[5][1]
2. (physics) The magnitude by which events are ordered into past, present and future; its SI unit is the second.^[5][1]
3. A part of that sequence; a while, a period: Vivió un tiempo en Lima.^[5][1]
4. The era or period in which someone lives or something happens: en tiempo de los visigodos.^[5]
5. A season of the year.^[5]
6. The age of a person or a thing.^[5]
7. The right moment or opportunity to do something: Todavía estás a tiempo.^[5]
8. Time available for doing something: Esta semana no me queda tiempo para leer.^[5][1]
9. A long time: Hace tiempo que no la veo.^[5][1]
10. Each of the successive stages into which an action is divided, as in military drill or a piece of music.^[5]
11. weather: the state of the atmosphere: Mañana hará mal tiempo.^[5][1]
12. (fencing) A thrust made without moving the feet.^[5]
13. (grammar) tense.^[5][1]
14. (Honduras) Each of the three daily meals.^[20]

Word family

• entretiempo
• contratiempo

Related words

• temporal
• temporario
• temprano
• temporada
• tempestad
• témpora
• contemporáneo
• tempo
• Latin tempus

Usage notes

Spanish uses the one word for “time” and “weather”: ¿Qué tiempo hace? asks about the weather.^[2][1] Common phrases are a tiempo “in time”, al mismo tiempo “at the same time” and con el tiempo “in the course of time”.^[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 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, 486
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. tiempo
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tiempo
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. tiempo
6. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 749
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. tempus
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6627
9. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. tiempu
10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. tempo
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. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ 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. tiempo
14. ^ 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. tiempo
15. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
16. ^ 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. 1328
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 271
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 841
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 746
20. ^ 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. tiempo
21. ^ Cobos, Rubén (1983), A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, p. 184
22. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 773
23. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 422
24. ^ 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. tiempo
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. 1023