veinte

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish veynte, inherited from Latin vīgintī (“twenty”).^[2][3][4][1] Menéndez Pidal and Corominas hold that the word was first stressed veínte;^[2] Berceo already contracts the two vowels as today, while vinte appears in the Poema de Yúçuf, the Fuero Juzgo, documents from Asturias, in Mirandese and in Portuguese.^[2] Corominas explains both from the Latin word, stressed on its second syllable: the second /i/ stayed /i/ under the influence of the final /i/, and the first was dissimilated to /e/ before the stressed vowel or lost in the hiatus.^[2]

The same word is Portuguese vinte, Galician vinte, Asturian venti, Aragonese vint, Catalan vint, Occitan vint, French vingt and Italian venti.^[2][5][1] Italian, which has no such vowel change, treated the word like trenta;^[2] French, Occitan and Catalan have the vowel change and reduced the hiatus.^[2] Corominas rejects the stress on the first syllable that d'Ovidio assumed.^[2]

The Latin numeral is an old dual, “two tens”, from Proto-Italic *wīkentī and Proto-Indo-European *h₁wih₁ḱm̥ti, which de Vaan writes *dui-dḱmt-ih₁.^[6][1] It is cognate with Ancient Greek εἴκοσι (eíkosi), the source of Spanish icosaedro.^[6][2] De Vaan follows Kortlandt in explaining the voiced ⟨g⟩ from the words for 70 and 90.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where Minaya, with blood running down his arm, „de veinte arriba ha moros matado”, “has killed more than twenty Moors”.^[7][8] The earliest hit known from an original is the Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223), where a planet completes its course „en veynte ocho anos”, “in twenty-eight years”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish wrote veynte, veinte, veint and vint;^[9][10] Alfonso X uses it both for the number and for the ordinal, en esse ueyinte & cinco anno “in that twenty-fifth year”.^[9][10] In the game of skittles veinte was the pin set apart from the other nine, according to Covarrubias;^[11][12] Autoridades notes that it was by then mostly called diez.^[11][12] The Academy recorded a las veinte “at an unearthly hour” in 1817.^[13] Later dictionaries added the points scored in the card game tute for the king and knight of a suit, and the hour 8 p.m.^[4][14]

In Mexico and Chile un veinte was a coin of twenty centavos.^[15][16] Veinticuatro named an alderman of Seville and other Andalusian towns, from their number.^[2][17]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – veinte in the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy).^[7][3]
• c. 1215 – veynte in the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (in a 14th-century copy).^[7]
• early 13th century – the compound veintiuno.^[3]
• c. 1223 – veynte ocho in the Semejanza del mundo.^[7]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the number.^[10]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Latin viginti.^[18]
• 1531 – the first record in the Americas, in Peru.^[19]
• 16th century – the derivative veintena.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the skittles sense.^[11]
• 1817 – the Academy enters a las veinte.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin viginti.^[20]

Meanings

Numeral

1. twenty: twice ten.^[4][1]
2. twentieth; used for the days of the month: Nos vemos el veinte de mayo.^[4]
3. A large but indefinite number.^[4]

Noun

1. The number twenty, and the figure 20.^[4]
2. (feminine plural) Eight o'clock in the evening.^[4]
3. (card games, feminine plural) In tute, the points won by declaring the king and knight of a suit that is not trumps: cantar las veinte.^[4]
4. (Mexico, Chile) A twenty-centavo coin.^[15]

Word family

• veintena
• veinteno
• veintavo
• veintiuno
• veintidós
• veinticuatro
• veintañal

Related words

• vigésimo
• icosaedro
• Latin viginti
• Portuguese vinte

Usage notes

The singular in phrases such as veintiún libros is general in spoken Spanish and is already found in the early 13th century.^[2] Dialect forms include vente in Navarre and vainte in popular Murcian.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 756
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. veinte
4. ^ 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. veinte
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. viginti
6. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. vīgintī
7. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. veinte
8. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 481
9. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. veinte
10. ^ a b c Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. veinte
11. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1, 1373
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 431
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 879
14. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. veinte
15. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 254
16. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 1108
17. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 1144
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 428
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. veinte
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1074