unificar

Forms

unificar (first-person singular present unifico, first-person singular preterite unifiqué, past participle unificado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin ūnificō (“to make one”), a compound of ūnus (“one”) and faciō (“to make”).^[2][1][3] Medieval Latin glossaries explain the verb as “to make one”, and Niermeyer gives it the senses “to unify, merge”.^[4][5] The DRAE of 2001 and Moliner instead analyse it as a Spanish formation from uni- or uno with -ificar.^[6][7] Corominas lists it among the compounds of uno, with a first record in Lope de Vega.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in the CDH is in Alfonso de la Torre's Visión deleitable (c. 1430–1440, in a 15th-century copy), where the winds are said to unite all things: los quales unifican todas las cosas “which unify all things”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Lope de Vega's La Dorotea (1632) uses it in a philosophical sense, of the form unificando el todo con las partes “unifying the whole with its parts”, the passage Autoridades quoted in 1739 for the sense “to make one thing or a whole of many, by uniting or mixing them”.^[9][3] The Academy's 1869 edition added “or by reducing them to one kind”, and the DLE now adds a second sense, making separate things form one organisation or serve a common end.^[10][2] In the Americas it is recorded from 1808, in Uruguay.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1430–1440 – first record, in Alfonso de la Torre's Visión deleitable.^[9]
• 1632 – Lope de Vega's La Dorotea.^[9][3]
• 1739 – Autoridades enters it.^[3]
• 1808 – first record from the Americas, in Uruguay.^[11]
• 1869 – the Academy adds “reducing to one kind” to the definition.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also pronominal) To unify: to make one thing or a whole of many, by joining or mixing them or reducing them to one kind: El nuevo reglamento unifica las tarifas de las dos compañías.^[2][1][7]
2. (transitive, also pronominal) To make different or separate things form one organization or serve one purpose: Los dos sindicatos se unificaron el año pasado.^[2][7]

Word family

• unificación

Related words

• uno
• uniformidad
• Latin ūnus

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. unificar
3. ^ 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, 389
4. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. unificare
5. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. unificare
6. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. unificar
7. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. unificar
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 715
9. ^ 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. unificar
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 774
11. ^ 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. unificar