virginidad

Forms

virginidad f (plural virginidades)^[1] Old Spanish wrote virginidat and uirginidat.^[2][3] Early colonial documents also have verginidad.^[4] The Judeo-Spanish word is virginidad or virginita.^[5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin virginitās (“maidenhood, virginity”).^[6][1][7] The Latin noun is formed from virgō (“maiden, virgin”) with the suffix -tās, which gives Spanish -dad.^[8][1] Corominas treats it under virgen, with a first record in Berceo.^[9][10]

The same Latin word is Portuguese virgindade, Galician virxinidade, Catalan virginitat, French virginité, Italian verginità and Romanian virginitate.^[1][11] Nascentes calls the Portuguese form semi-learned.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (c. 1215, known from a 14th-century copy), which says of the Virgin Mary: en ti priso humanidat, tú non perdiste virginidat “in you he took human nature, you did not lose your virginity”.^[3][2] The first hit in a contemporary manuscript is the Fueros de Aragón of 1247, on a woman who loses her uirginidat by force.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word had a religious use, for the perpetual virginity of Mary, beside a legal one in the law codes, where the loss of a woman's virginity by force was a crime.^[3] Alfonso X's Estoria de España tells of two heretics who spoke ill of the virginity of Saint Mary.^[13] In colonial marriage contracts of the 16th century, a husband gave his bride a dowry in honour of her lineage and virginidad.^[4] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as the bodily integrity of a person who has had no sexual relations, a definition the Academy kept until the 20th century; the DLE now says only “the state of being a virgin”.^[14][15][6] It is also used figuratively for the untouched state of something.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1215 – the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca uses virginidat of the Virgin Mary.^[3]
• 1220–1250 – Corominas's first record, in Berceo.^[9][10]
• 1247 – the Fueros de Aragón have uirginidat in a legal text.^[3]
• 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España of Alfonso X.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin virginitas.^[17]
• 1536 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City, spelt verginidad.^[4]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as bodily integrity.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. virginity: the state of being a virgin, of never having had sexual intercourse.^[6][1]
2. (figurative) The untouched or pure state of something: la virginidad de aquella selva.^[16]

Related words

• virgen
• virginal
• Latin virginitās

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. virginidad
3. ^ 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, p. s.v. virginidad
4. ^ a b c 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. verginidad
5. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. virginidad
6. ^ a b c 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. virginidad
7. ^ 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. virginidad
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 828
10. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. virgen
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 843
12. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. virgindade
13. ^ a b 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. virginidad
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 494
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 1023
16. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. virginidad
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 431