usurpar

Forms

usurpar (first-person singular present usurpo, first-person singular preterite usurpé, past participle usurpado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin ūsūrpō (“to take possession of by use”), a learned word.^[2][1][3] The Latin verb is usually explained as a contraction of a compound of ūsus (“use”) and rapiō (“to seize”).^[1][4][5] The OLD reconstructs *usuripo.^[4] Gómez de Silva starts from a form with the ablative of the noun, “by use”, and *rup- (“to snatch”).^[6][4][6] Nineteenth-century etymologists took it for an inchoative of ūtor.^[7]

In Roman law the verb meant to take possession by use, and so to take without right.^[8][4] The same Latin verb was borrowed as French usurper, first in 1340, and as Italian usurpare.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is a translation of Jacques de Vitry's abridged history of Jerusalem, dated after 1350, on monks usurpando parishes improperly.^[10] In the 1370s–1390s the word is frequent in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Aragonese translations, of seizing lordship and power.^[10][11] Corominas dates it from the Corbacho (1438); DICCA-XV from 1417.^[3][12][13]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades (1739) gives three senses: to take what belongs to another, to assume another's dignity or office, and to use one word in place of another.^[14] The Academy added in 1869 that the seizure is usually by violence, which the current definition keeps.^[15][2] Records from the Americas start in 1535 in Cartagena, and in the 16th century concern jurisdictions and town lands.^[16]

Timeline

• after 1350 – a translation of Jacques de Vitry's history of Jerusalem has usurpando.^[10]
• 1385 – Juan Fernández de Heredia's Grant crónica de Espanya.^[11]
• 1438 – the Corbacho, Corominas's first record, which also has usurpador.^[3][12]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses usurpo as using what belongs to another.^[13]
• 1535 – first record from the Americas, in Cartagena.^[16]
• 1739 – Autoridades gives three senses.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To usurp, to seize property or a right that lawfully belongs to another, usually by force: usurparon las tierras del convento.^[2][1]
2. To assume another's dignity, post or office and use it as one's own: usurpó el puesto de su hermano.^[2][17]

Word family

• usurpación
• usurpador

Related words

• uso
• usar
• Latin ūsūrpō

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. usurpar
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 725
4. ^ a b c d Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. ūsurpō
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. usurpar
6. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 711
7. ^ Monlau, Pedro Felipe (1856), Diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana (ensayo), Madrid: Imprenta de la Sociedad Literaria y Tipográfica, p. 447
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. usurper
9. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 813
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. usurpar
11. ^ a b 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. usurpar
12. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. uso
13. ^ a b 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. usurpar
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 401
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 776
16. ^ 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. usurpar
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. usurpar