unir

Forms

unir (first-person singular present uno, first-person singular preterite uní, past participle unido)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ūnīre (“to make into one, unite”), a learned verb.^[2][3][4][1] Corominas dated it from the mid-16th century, in Fray Alonso de Orozco, but it is found earlier: once in the Old Spanish Textual Archive, in 1384, and in 15th-century texts of the Crown of Aragon from 1417.^[2][5][6] The same learned verb is Italian unire, French unir, Catalan unir and Portuguese unir; only Old French onir may be a popular form.^[7] The inherited verb of the same Latin family is aunar, from Late Latin adūnō (“to unite”).^[2][3]

ūniō is formed from ūnus (“one”) with the verbal suffix -iō.^[8][9] It is a rare word of Latin after Augustus, in Seneca, Apuleius and the Digest.^[10][8] Bénaben glosses its literal sense as “to make only one”.^[11]

The verb mixed with uñir, the outcome of Latin iungō (“to yoke, join”), which 16th-century writers also used for “to unite spiritually”.^[12] In Salamanca a verb spelled like this one means “to yoke”: García de Diego derives it from the same Latin verb, influenced by this one.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Old Spanish Textual Archive has a single occurrence, in a text of 1384.^[5] DICCA-XV dates its first record 1417 and reports that the CORDE has one from 1359.^[6] Its earliest example quoted in full is from the Aragonese chancery in 1422, “to unite” (vne) with the service of the king, and a love song of 1445–1463 already uses it for marriage: „tracto de casamiento / e su conclusion final / que del todo nos hunio”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th century the verb was still rare;^[6] DICCA-XV counts only 25 occurrences, many of them the participle unido in religious prose (the divinity unida con nuestra carne).^[6] Corominas's first examples are of the mid-16th century.^[2] In the same period uñir, proper to yoking oxen, was also used for spiritual union.^[12]

The Diccionario de Autoridades defined unir as joining two or more things into one whole, and as mixing, tying and bringing close, with Solís's uniéronse todos para hacer el último esfuerzo.^[14] The 1817 edition added the canon-law sense of annexing one benefice to another, and the surgical sense of closing a wound.^[15] The sense “to marry” entered the Academy's dictionary in 1899.^[16] Cejador regarded unir as the learned counterpart of aunar, and unión and reunir as imitations of French.^[17] In Gran Canaria it means “to get on well”.^[18]

Timeline

• 1359 – the CORDE's earliest record, as reported by DICCA-XV.^[6]
• 1384 – a single occurrence in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[5]
• 1417 – DICCA-XV's first record.^[6]
• 1445–1463 – a song uses hunio of marriage.^[6]
• mid-16th century – Corominas's first record, in Fray Alonso de Orozco.^[2]
• 1563 – the first record from the Americas, in Yucatán.^[19]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades derives it from Latin unire.^[14]
• 1817 – the canon-law and surgical senses enter the Academy's dictionary.^[15]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the sense “to marry”.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To join: to put one thing next to or against another so that they form a whole: Unió las dos piezas con cola.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To mix or bind things together: Batir hasta unir la harina y los huevos.^[4]
3. (transitive) To tie or link one thing with another, physically or morally.^[4]
4. (transitive) To bring things together so that they form a set or serve the same end.^[4]
5. (transitive) To marry (casar): to perform a marriage, or arrange the marriage of someone under one's authority.^[4]
6. (transitive) To bring wills, minds or opinions into agreement.^[4][20]
7. (transitive, canon law) To annex one benefice to another.^[4]
8. (transitive, medicine) To close a wound.^[4][20]
9. (reflexive) Of people: to join forces or form an alliance to achieve something: Los vecinos se unieron contra el proyecto.^[4][20]
10. (Gran Canaria) To get on well together.^[18]

Word family

• desunir
• reunir
• unidor
• unitivo

Related words

• un
• unible
• unido
• unión
• unitario
• uno
• unidad
• aunar
• uncir
• Latin ūniō

Usage notes

Unir is a regular verb, so its first person uno looks like the numeral.^[1] Wiktionary gives uñir as a variant;^[1][12] Corominas derives uñir from Latin iungere and notes that it survives in Leonese dialects.^[1][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 715
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. uno
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. unir
5. ^ a b c 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
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. unir
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. unir
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. unir
12. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 714
13. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6981
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 391
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 871
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 996
17. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1908–1914), Tesoro de la lengua castellana: origen y vida del lenguaje, 12 vols., Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Compañía, p. s.v. unir
18. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. unir
19. ^ 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. unir
20. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. unir