violento

Forms

violento (feminine violenta, masculine plural violentos, feminine plural violentas, superlative violentísimo)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin violentus (“violent, impetuous”), a learned word taken into Spanish as early as Berceo.^[2][3][1] Corominas derives the Latin adjective from vīs (“force, power, violence”).^[2] The OLD analyses it instead as built on violō (“to violate”) with the suffix -entus, and Gómez de Silva notes that the verb belongs to the same family and goes back in the end to the same noun.^[4][5]

The word is an old and well-rooted learned borrowing in all the sister languages: French violent is recorded in 1213, Catalan violent from about 1260, though it stayed rare until the 17th century, and Portuguese violento from the 15th century.^[2][6][7][8] Italian violento has the same form.^[1]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *wīs and Proto-Indo-European *uiH-s (“strength”), with a cognate in Ancient Greek ἴς (ís, “strength, force”).^[9] De Vaan regards a link with the word for “man” as traditional but unproven, and any relation to roots meaning “to wind” or “to hunt” as uncertain.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel's first record is Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos, of about 1230, and Segura Munguía dates the word 1220–1250.^[10][11][2] Corominas then finds it in Alfonso de Palencia's vocabulary of 1490; it is frequent in the Golden Age, but Nebrija's dictionaries still lack it.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word applied both to people who act with force or rage and to things done with great force.^[2][12] Covarrubias (1611) defined it as whatever is done by force and against natural inclination, and quoted the Latin proverb Nullum violentum perpetuum “nothing violent lasts for ever”.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades put the sense “out of its natural state, place or manner” first, then “acting with force and impetus”, and added “against someone's will or liking”.^[12] The Academy kept that order until the 2001 edition; the present dictionary leads with the violent person and the use of force, and keeps the old “out of its natural state”, the “twisted” interpretation of a text and the sense “awkward, embarrassing” of a situation or of a person caught in one.^[14][15][3]

Corominas notes that the word has become very popular in modern speech, at least in the cities.^[2] In Panama, Puerto Rico and Colombia young people use it of something very good or attractive, and in Colombia also of something very big or excessive; in Puerto Rico it can mean “very hard, tremendous”.^[16][17]

Timeline

• c. 1230 – Berceo uses the word in the Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos.^[10][2]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario has it.^[2]
• 1565 – the first record from the Americas, in Yucatán: violentas presunciones “strong presumptions”.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias quotes the proverb Nullum violentum perpetuum.^[13]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives three senses, the first “out of its natural state”.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology violentus.^[14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a person: violent, acting with force and easily carried away by anger: Su vecino se volvía violento cuando bebía.^[3][1]
2. Typical of a violent person: un carácter violento.^[3]
3. Done or happening with extraordinary force or intensity; sudden, fierce: un golpe violento.^[3][19]
4. Involving the use of physical or moral force: una muerte violenta.^[3]
5. Out of its natural state, position or manner; forced, unnatural.^[3]
6. Of a reading or interpretation of a text: false, twisted.^[3]
7. Of a situation: awkward, embarrassing; of a person: ill at ease in such a situation: Me sentí violento al oír la discusión.^[3][20]
8. (Panama, Puerto Rico, Colombia; youth slang) Very good, attractive.^[16]

Word family

• violentar
• violentamente

Related words

• violencia
• violar
• Latin vis

Usage notes

The set phrases muerte violenta “violent death” and movimiento violento are DLE subentries.^[3]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 823
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. violento
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 9, 297
8. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. violento
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. violento
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 843
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 492
13. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1391
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1092
15. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. violento
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. violento
17. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. violento
18. ^ 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. violento
19. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. violento
20. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. violento