virgen

Forms

virgen m or f by sense (plural vírgenes)^[1] Old Spanish texts write virgen, uirgen, uiergen and uirgin, with the plurals virgines, vírgines and virgenes.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish virgen, borrowed from Latin virgō (“girl of marriageable age; virgin”), from the stem of its accusative.^[3][4][5][1] Corominas calls it a word taken from Latin, and Cejador a learned, ecclesiastical one.^[3][6] Wiktionary calls it semi-learned and notes that the regular popular outcome would have been *vercen.^[1] Corominas thinks the Romance forms, which look popular in most languages, may all be semi-learned;^[3] Portuguese has a learned form too.^[3] Spanish also has the purely learned doublet virgo “virginity”, recorded in 1495.^[4]

The same Latin word is Portuguese virgem, Galician virxe, Asturian virxe, Catalan verge, French vierge, Italian vergine and Romanian vergură “Mother of God”.^[7][8][1][9] In Catalan the word is recorded from the Homilies d'Organyà.^[10]

The origin of the Latin word is unknown.^[11][1] An older view, reported by de Vaan, takes it as an individual noun from virga (“twig, young shoot”); de Vaan rejects a compound with the word for “man”.^[12][13][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy): E alli fueron soterados dos virgines Paulla e Ustochium “and there two virgins were buried, Paula and Eustochium”.^[14][15] The Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223), known from a manuscript of its own time, speaks of a stone that reveals las que son virgenes “those who are virgins”.^[14] Corominas dates the word to Berceo, 1220–50, who uses it of the Virgin Mary in the Vida de San Millán.^[3][4][14]

Semantic evolution

Applied to the Mother of God the word has been very common in every period.^[3] Alfonso X's prose already has the sense “person who has not had sexual intercourse”, la Virgen for Mary, the virgins as a rank of saints, and the zodiac sign Virgo.^[16]

Nebrija (1495) gives Latin virgo with donzella as its synonym;^[17][18] Covarrubias (1611) derives the Latin word from the “greener”, more vigorous age of a girl.^[17][18] Autoridades added the image of the Virgin set up for veneration.^[19] In the Americas tierra virgen “untilled land” is recorded in 1541, and the Virgin Islands appear in 1546.^[20] The Academy's 1884 edition gave the adjective for untilled land and for things in their first state, such as aceite virgen and miel virgen.^[21] Newer senses are an unused tape or disc and unspoilt forest.^[22][1]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has the plural virgines.^[14][15]
• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo.^[14]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo writes of the Fijo de la Virgen Gloriosa, the first record Corominas gives.^[3][4][14]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses uirgines of women and uirgen of the zodiac sign.^[16]
• 1495 – the learned doublet virgo “virginity” appears in Nebrija.^[4]
• 1541 – tierra virgen in a text from Puebla, the first record from the Americas.^[20]
• 18th century – Autoridades records the image of the Virgin.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy defines aceite virgen and untilled land.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. A virgin: a person who has not had sexual intercourse; also as an adjective.^[5][1]
2. A person who keeps chastity and has consecrated it to a deity.^[5]
3. (la Virgen) The Virgin María, the mother of Jesus; also an image of her: la Virgen del Pilar.^[5][1][19]
4. One of the titles and ranks the Catholic Church gives to holy women who kept their chastity.^[5][16]
5. Each of the two upright posts that guide the beam in a wine or olive oil press.^[5][23]

Adjective

1. Of land, never ploughed or cultivated: bosques vírgenes.^[5][22]
2. Of a thing, still in its original state and not yet used for its purpose; blank: un disco virgen.^[5][1]
3. Pure, unmixed or unrefined: aceite de oliva virgen.^[5][21]

Word family

• virginal
• virgíneo
• virginidad
• desvirgar

Related words

• virgo
• Latin virgō

Usage notes

The word is masculine or feminine according to the person, and is written with a capital when it means the Mother of God.^[24][1] The colloquial saying fíate de la Virgen y no corras warns against trusting to luck instead of making an effort.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 828
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. virgen
5. ^ 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. virgen
6. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1908–1914), Tesoro de la lengua castellana: origen y vida del lenguaje, 12 vols., Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Compañía
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3517
10. ^ 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, 163
11. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. virgo
14. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
15. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. virgen
16. ^ 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. virgen
17. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 431
18. ^ 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. 1392
19. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 493
20. ^ 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
21. ^ a b c 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
22. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. virgen
23. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
24. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. virgen