vindicar

Forms

vindicar (first-person singular present vindico, first-person singular preterite vindiqué, past participle vindicado)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin vindicō (“to claim; to set free; to avenge”).^[2][1][3] The same Latin verb, inherited, gave vengar and Old Spanish vendegar (in Berceo), as well as Portuguese vingar.^[3][4] Basque borrowed it as mendekatu.^[3][4] Corominas calls the verb the learned doublet of the inherited one and dates it from Villena.^[4]

The Latin verb is formed from vindex (“defender, protector; avenger”), which Wiktionary analyses as a compound of the stem of vīs (“force”) and dīcō (“to say, indicate”), like iūdex.^[1] DICCA-XV likewise derives the verb from the noun meaning “defender”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hits in Spanish prose are Enrique de Villena's Arte de trovar of 1433, known from a 16th-century copy, where other hard tasks vindicasen a sí mi intento “claimed my effort for themselves”, and Rodrigo Sánchez de Arévalo's Suma de la política (1454–1457), with ira vindicante “avenging anger”.^[6] Corominas dates the word 1453, from Villena;^[4][5] DICCA-XV reports a first CORDE record of 1423–24.^[4][5] Earlier hits in the CDH are Latin quotations inside Spanish texts.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th century the verb was mainly a gloss for “avenge”: Nebrija in 1492 rendered Latin vindico by vengar, and so did Fernández de Santaella's Vocabulario eclesiástico of 1499.^[5][6] Autoridades gave three senses: to avenge, to recover by right what has been wrongly taken (a legal use), and to defend someone wrongly accused, especially in writing.^[7] Terreros added “to reclaim” and pointed to revindicar.^[8] From the 18th century the American records use it for defending oneself or another against charges.^[9] Today the sense “defend someone's good name” is the commonest, while “avenge” and “reclaim” are formal, and in law the word means to recover what is one's own, like reivindicar.^[10][11][2]

Timeline

• 1423–24 – first record in the CORDE, as reported by DICCA-XV.^[5]
• 1433 – Villena's Arte de trovar (in a 16th-century copy).^[6]
• 1453 – Corominas's date, from Villena.^[4]
• 1454–1457 – Sánchez de Arévalo writes of ira vindicante.^[6]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses Latin vindico as vengar.^[5]
• 1739 – Autoridades records the senses “avenge”, “recover by law” and “defend in writing”.^[7]
• 1757 – first record from the Americas, in Bogotá.^[9]
• 1884 – the Academy gives Latin vindicare as its etymon.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (formal) To avenge; also reflexive, to take revenge: Juró vindicar la muerte de su hermano.^[2][10][1]
2. To vindicate, defend someone unjustly attacked or slandered, especially in writing.^[2][11][1]
3. (law) To recover what belongs to one; to claim (reivindicar).^[2][11]

Word family

• vindicación
• vindicador
• vindicativo
• vindicatorio

Related words

• vengar
• reivindicar
• vindicta
• Latin vindex

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. vindicar
3. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7186
4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 770
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. vindicar
6. ^ 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. vindicar
7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. vindicar
8. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 803
9. ^ 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. vindicar
10. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. vindicar
11. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vindicar
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. 1091