transitorio

Forms

transitorio (feminine transitoria, masculine plural transitorios, feminine plural transitorias)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin trānsitōrius (“passing, transitory”), a learned word.^[2][1][3] The Latin adjective is formed from trānseō (“to go across”) with the suffix -tōrius, or from the noun trānsitus.^[4][5] In classical Latin it meant “giving passage”, and in Christian Latin “passing, transitory”, as in Boethius.^[4][5][6]

The same Latin word was borrowed as French transitoire, Italian transitorio, Catalan transitori and English transitory.^[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas and Segura Munguía date the word to 1438.^[8][3] From the start it was used of the fleeting goods and life of this world: Juan de Mena speaks of those who give themselves to the vices of aqueste transitorio siglo “this passing world”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

For centuries it was mainly a religious word: Autoridades says it is usually said of the happiness and pleasures of this life, and the first record from the Americas, from New Granada in 1588, is vida transitoria.^[9][10] The Academy's 1899 dictionary put the neutral sense “passing, temporary” first.^[11] The DLE has since added a sense in physics, of a phenomenon or quantity that varies briefly between two steady states.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1235 – DEMel lists the word in Berceo's Vida de San Millán, from a concordance.^[12]
• 1438 – Corominas's first record.^[8]
• 1444 – the Cancionero de París has the word.^[13]
• 1588 – first record from the Americas, vida transitoria in New Granada.^[10]
• 1739 – Autoridades says it is used mostly of the pleasures of this life.^[9]
• 1899 – the Academy defines it first as “passing, temporary”.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. temporary, transitional: lasting only for a time: Es un trabajo transitorio hasta el verano.^[2][14][1]
2. transitory, fleeting, perishable: la vida transitoria.^[2][9]
3. (physics) Of a phenomenon or quantity: varying for a short time between two steady states; also as a noun, a transient.^[2]

Word family

• transitoriamente
• transitoriedad

Related words

• tránsito
• transitar
• transición
• transeúnte
• Latin trānsitōrius

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. transitorio
3. ^ a b c Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 223
4. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. transitōrius
5. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. transitorius
6. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. transitorius
7. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 554
8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. transido
9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 327
10. ^ 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. transitorio
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 976
12. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. transitorio
13. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. transitorio
14. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. transitorio