vestido

Forms

vestido (feminine vestida, masculine plural vestidos, feminine plural vestidas)^[1] Old Spanish texts spell it vestido, uestido and bestido, in the plural uestidos and bestidos.^[2][3]

Etymology

The noun is inherited from Latin vestītus (“clothing, dress”), the fourth-declension action noun formed from vestiō (“to clothe”).^[4][5][6][1] The adjective is the past participle of vestir, which continues the same Latin verb.^[4][7][1] Corominas notes that the Latin noun survives in all the Romance languages except French and Romanian.^[4] It is Portuguese vestido, Catalan vestit, Occitan vestit and Italian vestito.^[8][9]

The Latin verb is formed from vestis (“clothes”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Italic *westis and Proto-Indo-European *wes- (“to be dressed”).^[10][1] Its cognates include ἕννυμι (hénnumi, “to clothe”) and Sanskrit and Hittite verbs meaning “to wear”.^[10] The English verb wear comes from the same root.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH dates the word to a charter of 1050 in Oelschläger's list, in the spelling vestito; it adds that some 12th-century Mozarabic examples still need checking.^[4][5] The first literary record is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where the Cid's men count their booty: Entre tiendas e armas e vestidos preciados “among tents and arms and costly garments”.^[3] There the word already means “garment, clothing”.^[3][11]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages vestido was any garment or the clothing a person wore, and Berceo uses it for the pontifical vestments of the Jewish high priest.^[3][12] Alfonso X's General estoria speaks of menores vestidos, apparently everyday or informal clothes.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it in 1739 as the covering worn for warmth, protection and decency, and also as the set of main pieces, for men the coat, waistcoat and breeches, beside which the other pieces were called cabos; figuratively it was any ornament that embellishes or disguises a thing.^[14]

The Academy's 1817 dictionary added the phrase cortar un vestido “to gossip about someone” and the proverb el vestido del criado dice quién es su señor “the servant's dress tells who his master is”.^[15] Today the noun means a garment or clothing in general, and in particular a woman's one-piece dress.^[6][7] In much of Latin America the word is used for a man's suit as well: in Panama and Colombia, and in the Spanish of New Mexico.^[16][17] In Puerto Rico and Mexico, on the other hand, vestido is the woman's dress and a man's suit is a traje.^[18][19]

Timeline

• 1050 – first record, vestito, in a charter.^[4][5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has vestidos preciados “costly garments” (in a 14th-century copy).^[3]
• 1158–1202 – the Fuero de Madrid has Bestidos de fiadores.^[2][3]
• c. 1230s – Berceo uses it for the high priest's vestments.^[3][12]
• 1527 – first record in the Americas, at Santa Marta.^[20]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the noun and its sense “the set of main pieces of a suit”.^[14]
• 1817 – the Academy records cortar un vestido “to speak ill of someone”.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin vestitus.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. A garment or set of outer garments covering the body; clothing in general.^[6][7][1]
2. A woman's one-piece dress.^[6][1][22]
3. (Latin America) A man's suit.^[16][17]

Adjective

1. dressed, clothed.^[1][7]
2. (Andalusia) Dressed up.^[1]

Related words

• vestir
• vestidura
• vestimenta
• Latin vestis
• Portuguese vestido

Usage notes

Vestido is also the past participle of vestir (se ha vestido). The set phrase vestido y calzado means “with clothing and footwear paid for by someone else”.^[6][23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. vestido
3. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. vestido
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 795
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vestir
6. ^ a b c d e 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. vestido
7. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vestido
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. vestit
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. vestido
12. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. s.v. vestido
13. ^ 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. vestido
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 468
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 888
16. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. vestido
17. ^ a b Cobos, Rubén (1983), A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, p. 194
18. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. vestido
19. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 258
20. ^ 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. vestido
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1085
22. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. vestido
23. ^ 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. vestir