visión

Forms

visión f (plural visiones)^[1] Old Spanish wrote vision, uision, vission and visyon;^[2][3] Berceo's verse counts it with four syllables, visïón.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin vīsiō (“the act of seeing; sight”), a learned word.^[4][1][5][6] The Latin noun is formed from videō (“to see”) with the suffix -tiō.^[7][1] De Vaan traces the verb to Proto-Indo-European *uid-eh₁- (“to see”).^[8]

The Latin word also gave Catalan visió, French vision and Italian visione as learned words.^[9][10][1] Its popular descendants are western: Portuguese avejão (“ghost”), from a form with a prefixed ⟨a-⟩, and Galician avexón.^{[11][12][5][13]} The Portuguese visão came by a semi-learned route.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), where God speaks to Israel en la vision de la noch “in the vision of the night”.^[3] The Disputa del alma y el cuerpo (c. 1201) also has it for a dream vision: ui una uisión grant “I saw a great vision”.^[3] Menéndez Pidal restores the word in line 406 of the Cantar de mio Cid, for the appearance of a supernatural being.^[15]

Semantic evolution

Corominas dates the sense “sight” from Berceo's San Millán and “ghost, apparition” from the Libro de Alexandre;^[5][16] Nebrija added “dream”.^[5][16] Alfonso X used it for the act of seeing and for fantastic images seen in dreams.^[17]

Autoridades gave the theological visión beatífica, the sight of God that is the bliss of the blessed, and a revelation sent by God, and it also called a ridiculous or frightening object a visión.^[18] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 added the familiar sense of an ugly, ridiculous person and the phrase ver visiones, to let one's imagination run away with one.^[19]

The 2001 edition added a particular point of view on a subject, and the current one adds the ability to see.^[20][4] Visión de futuro is the ability to foresee how things will develop.^[21][22]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has la vision de la noch.^[3]
• c. 1230 – Berceo uses it for “sight” in the Vida de San Millán.^[5][3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of a stone that brings good uisiones.^[17]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin visum for a vision in a dream and phantasma for one seen at night.^[23]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[24]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades defines the visión beatífica.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy adds “ugly, ridiculous person” and ver visiones.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of seeing; sight.^[4][1]
2. The ability to see, also figuratively: Tiene poca visión de lejos.^[4][21]
3. Direct contemplation without perception by the senses.^[4]
4. A particular view or point of view on a subject.^[4][1]
5. Something seen, especially something ridiculous or frightening.^[4]
6. A creation of the imagination taken as real: ver visiones.^[4][1]
7. (colloquial) An ugly or ridiculous person.^[4][21]
8. (religion) An image perceived in a supernatural way, by the eyes or the imagination; a vision.^[4]
9. (religion) Intellectual illumination infused without any image.^[4]

Word family

• visionario
• visionar
• visionado

Related words

• previsión
• provisión
• revisión
• ver
• visible
• viso
• vista
• visual
• Latin vīsiō
• Portuguese avejão

Usage notes

Visión beatífica is the sight of God that makes up the bliss of the blessed, and visión intelectual clear knowledge without reasoning.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. visión
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. visión
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. visión
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 713
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7216
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. uīsiō
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. videō
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. visió
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. vision
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9376a
12. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 421
13. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. avejão
14. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. visão
15. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 492
16. ^ a b Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 845
17. ^ 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. visión
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6
19. ^ 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. 1093
20. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. visión
21. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. visión
22. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. visión
23. ^ 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. visión
24. ^ 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. visión