urgencia

Forms

urgencia f (plural urgencias)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin urgentia (“pressure, urgency”), a noun formed on the present participle of urgeō (“to press, push”).^[2][3][1] Wiktionary also allows a formation from Spanish urgir + -encia.^[1] It belongs to the learned family of urgir, with urgente, recorded from 1590, and Corominas notes that the noun and the adjective were long much more common than the verb.^[4][5]

The same Latin noun gave Italian urgenza, French urgence, Catalan urgència, Portuguese urgência and Galician urxencia.^[6][7]

De Vaan reconstructs the Latin verb as Proto-Italic *worg-eje/o-, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *u(o)rǵh-eie-, with possible cognates in Lithuanian veržti (“to tighten, squeeze”) and Old High German wurgen (“to strangle”).^[8] The OLD also calls the Germanic and Baltic link only probable.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first reliable record in the CDH is in González de Mendoza's history of China (1585–1586), where soldiers have to go wherever they are needed en tiempo de guerra y urgencia “in time of war and emergency”.^[10] Medical books of 1598–1599 use it for the urgency of a case that justifies a treatment.^[10][3]

Semantic evolution

Corominas dates the word to the end of the 17th century, from the Autoridades, which calls it a Latin word and defines it as the pressing need that obliges one to something, a want of what a matter needs at once, and, of laws, the obligation to fulfil them now.^[4][11] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 still gave “the need to do something quickly” as the first sense; that of 1899 changed it to “the quality of being urgent”, the DLE's first sense today.^[12][13][2]

The countable sense “an urgent case” and the plural urgencias, the casualty department of a hospital, are the modern senses.^[2][14] In the Americas the word is recorded from 1692 in Tucumán and 1693 in Mexico City (en caso de urgencia).^[15]

Timeline

• 1585–1586 – González de Mendoza, Historia de las cosas más notables … del gran Reino de la China.^[10]
• 1590 – the adjective urgente.^[5]
• 1598–1599 – medical writers (Jerónimo Soriano, Luis Mercado) use the word.^[10]
• 1692 – first record from the Americas, in Tucumán.^[15]
• 1739 – the Autoridades, with three senses; it is the first record the DCECH gives.^[11][4]
• 1899 – the Academy defines it as the quality of being urgent.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. urgency: the quality of being urgent (urgente).^[2][1]
2. A pressing need or lack of something required: a want of money, of time or of help.^[2][14]
3. An urgent case, an emergency: Llámame solo si surge una urgencia.^[2][1]
4. The immediate obligation to fulfil a law or precept.^[2]
5. (in the plural) The casualty or emergency department of a hospital.^[2][14]

Related words

• urgente
• urgir
• Latin urgeō
• French urgence

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. urgencia
3. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. urgencia
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 721
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. urgir
6. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 636
7. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. urgencia
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ 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. urgencia
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 398
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1064
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 997
14. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. urgencia
15. ^ 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. urgencia