tilde

Forms

tilde f or (chiefly Uruguay) m (plural tildes)^[1]

Etymology

It is a semi-popular doublet of título, probably borrowed from Catalan title or Old Occitan tille, taken as a term of grammar: its final ⟨-e⟩ shows that it cannot come straight from Latin.^[2][3] Medieval Catalan had title, still used in Majorca, beside modern titlla, and tille is frequent in 14th-century texts.^[2] Moliner and Etymonline also derive it from Catalan, Etymonline by metathesis of the Catalan form.^[4][5] The Academy now derives it from tildar, although Corominas first records that verb only in the early 17th century.^[6][2]

The source is Latin titulus (“inscription, title”), used in Medieval Latin for the stroke written over an abbreviated word.^[2][5] The Academy's dictionaries from 1884 to Alemany's of 1917 derived the Spanish word directly from it.^[7][8] The Latin word is of uncertain origin;^[9][1] Wiktionary suggests an Etruscan loan.^[9][1] The same word gave French titre, earlier Old French title, and Italian titolo, and Portuguese til comes from the Occitan form.^[10][11][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Enrique de Villena's glosses on his translation of the Aeneid (1427–1428, in a copy of 1442) blame scribes in Castile for writing without pauses and stops e poniendo tildes donde non ha menester “and putting tildes where none are needed”, to make the script look fine.^[12] Corominas's first record is Villena's Arte de trovar of 1433, which describes the sound of la n e tilde, that is, ⟨ñ⟩.^[2][12]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija's grammar of 1492 explains that ⟨n⟩ gets another sound when doubled or written with a tilde above it, as in ñudo.^[12] From the Gospel saying that not one tittle shall pass from the law (vna .i. e vn tilde no passara dela ley, before 1485) came the sense “the least thing”, which Cervantes uses in sin que falte tilde “without a jot missing”.^[12][13]

Covarrubias described the little stroke over a letter and explained the word as title, the mark over an abbreviated word.^[14] Autoridades treated it as masculine, but the classics already made it feminine in the sense “the least thing”; the Academy called it of either gender from 1843, and today it is feminine, with masculine use chiefly in Uruguay.^{[2][15][6][1]} Terreros added “a stain on one's name”, which the Academy recorded as a figurative sense in 1884.^[16][7] In current usage the tilde is above all the written accent of Spanish spelling.^[6]

English took tilde from Spanish in 1864 for the mark over ⟨ñ⟩.^[5]

Timeline

• 1427–1428 – Villena's glosses on the Aeneid (in a copy of 1442).^[12]
• 1433 – Villena's Arte de trovar, the DCECH's first record.^[2]
• 1492 – Nebrija's grammar on ⟨ñ⟩.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin titulus and apex.^[2]
• 1571 – Molina's Nahuatl dictionary, Mexico City, uses the word.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains it as title.^[14]
• 1843 – the Academy gives it as of either gender.^[15]
• 1864 – English borrows tilde from Spanish.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The written accent of Spanish spelling: La palabra «árbol» lleva tilde en la a.^[6][1]
2. The small stroke, sometimes wavy, that is part of some letters, such as ⟨ñ⟩, and was formerly used in abbreviations; a tilde.^[6][4][1]
3. The least thing, a jot.^[6][13]
4. (rare) A blemish, a mark against someone's name.^[6][4][1]

Word family

• atildar
• tildar
• tildón

Related words

• título
• titular
• Latin titulus
• Catalan titlla

Usage notes

The word is feminine in current Spanish (la tilde), though it was long used as masculine, and still is in Uruguay.^[6][1][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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, 512
3. ^ Prat Sabater, Marta (2003), Préstamos del catalán en el léxico español, doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, p. 160
4. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tilde
5. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. tilde
7. ^ 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. 1026
8. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1583
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
12. ^ 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. tilde
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 275
14. ^ 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. 1329
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 701
16. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 635
17. ^ 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. tilde