[GO TO THE LISTING OF ALL THE PARTS OF THIS CHAPTER]
Eng. delicate ~ Sp. delicado and delgado
There is another set of Spanish-English cognates that have been
linked to the Latin verb dēlicĕre and
to the Latin noun dēliciae, namely Eng.
delicate
[ˈdɛ.lɪ.kət] on one hand
and learned Spanish delicado/a [d̪e.li.ˈka.ðo] and its patrimonial doublet delgado [d̪el.ˈɣa.ðo] on the other.
Eng. delicate and
Sp. delicate are good friends since
they look alike and have very similar meanings. Sp. delgado, on the other hand, does not look that much like delicate and it has a rather different, though
not totally unrelated meaning, namely ‘thin, slim’.
All three words descend from Lat. dēlĭcātus (feminine dēlĭcāta) that meant primarily ‘that gives pleasure, alluring,
charming, delightful’, ‘luxurious’, ‘voluptuous’ as well as, poetically, ‘soft,
tender, delicate’, among other meanings (L&S).
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Latin
dēlĭcātus/a
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English
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Spanish
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delicate
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delgado/a
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delicado/a
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As we just mentioned, Eng. delicate and Sp. delicado
are learned borrowings from Latin dēlĭcātus,
only displaying the expected adaptations of the Latin inflection (ending). In
English loanwords from written Latin, the Latin inflection ‑ātus
was typically changed to ‑ate and in
Spanish, it was changed to ‑ado, for
that is how that ending had evolved in patrimonial words in the case of Spanish
and in early French loanwords in the case of English.
Sp. delgado,
on the other hand, is a patrimonial descendant of Latin dēlĭcātus, displaying all the expected regular sound changes (cf. Part I, Chapter 10):
1.
Loss of intertonic ‑i‑ (an intertonic vowel is in word internal position next to the
stressed vowel (which here was ā)
2.
Voicing
of intervocalic ‑c‑ [k] to ‑g‑ [ɡ]
3.
Voicing
of intervocalic ‑t‑ [t] to ‑d‑ [d]
4.
Replacement
of the masculine inflection ‑us (actually,
its accusative version ‑um) with ‑o
What is not totally clear is how Lat. dēlĭcātus
is related to the verb dēlicĕre and to
the noun dēliciae, though the similarity
of meanings and forms suggest strongly that they are. The exact type of
relation or derivation is not clear, however. This adjective has all the looks of a past participle of a first conjugation
(‑ar) verb, because of the ending ‑ātus, but remember that dēlicĕre did not have a past participle and
it is a third conjugation verb, anyway. If it had had a passive participle it
would have probably been *dēlectus,
not dēlĭcātus. The OED mentions the
difficulties in tracing this word’s origin:
The etymology of Latin dēlicātus appears to be quite uncertain: several distinct suggestions are current. Even the primary sense is doubtful; but, if not originally connected with dēliciæ (delice n.), it seems to have been subsequently associated therewith. The word had undergone considerable development of meaning already in ancient Latin; in Romanic it received further extension in the line of meaning ‘dainty, tenderly fine, slender, slight, easily affected or hurt’; these Latin and Romanic senses have at various times been adopted in English, often as literal adaptations of the Latin word in the Vulgate [the original Latin version of the New Testament], etc.; and the history of the word here is involved and difficult to trace.
Note that
there is a second word dēlicātus in Late
and Vulgar Latin, which is the regular past participle of the verb dēlicāre (dēlicō, dēlicāre, dēlicāvī, dēlicātum), but this verb has an unrelated meaning, namely ‘to
clear off a turbid liquid, to clarify, to strain’ and, derived from it, ‘to
clear up by speaking, to explain’ (L&S). This verb is clearly not related
to our Lat. dēlĭcātus, and it is definitely unrelated to the
Latin verb dēlĭcĕre. As we saw
earlier, this verb dēlĭcāre was a
corruption of Classical Latin dēlĭquāre
(same meaning as dēlicāre above).
Curiously,
French did not borrow this Latin word until the late 15th century, much later
than English, in the form of delicat.
In the 15th century, this French word meant ‘daintie, pleasing, prettie,
delicious, tender, nice, effeminate, of a weake complexion’ (OED), but its
modern descendant délicat [de.li.ˈka]
(fem. delicate [de.li.ˈkat]) means ‘of
exquisite fineness’ (OED). French, however, had a much earlier version of this
word, from the 12th century, namely délié
(fem. déliée) that meant ‘fine,
slender; nimble, agile’. This word was supposedly borrowed and adapted from
Lat. dēlicātus under the influence of
the French verb délier ‘to untie,
undo’ (GR; cf. Sp. desliar).
Latin dēlicātus had several related meanings, from
‘addicted to pleasure’ and ‘spoiled with overindulgence’ to ‘soft, tender, delicate’,
and even ‘effeminate’. The ‘tender, delicate’ sense is the main sense that has survived
through the ages in the Spanish and English reflexes of this word, though this wasn’t
always the case. The adjective delicate
entered English in the late 14th century with the meanings ‘self-indulgent, loving
ease’, ‘delightful’, ‘sensitive, easily hurt’, and ‘feeble’. The meaning ‘easily broken’, said of
objects, dates from the 16th century.
We said that
Eng. delicate and Sp. delicado are good friends, since their
primary and most common meanings do match. The two words are typically, though not
always, good translations of each other. Dictionaries differ as to the number
of senses each of these words has and how to divide them. The American Heritage Dictionary for
instance gives us ten senses for delicate
but the Concise Oxford English Dictionary
gives us only three. The Academy’s Diccionario de la Lengua Española (DLE) gives us eleven senses for delicado. However, entries with many senses contain some that could easily
be collapsed, senses that could be divided differently, or even senses that are
rare in normal speech. Also, some of the senses may only be found in idiomatic
expressions, which may very well be calques of expressions in other languages.
Overall, the mapping of the different senses of this word turns out to be a
rather tricky affair.
Bilingual
English-Spanish dictionaries also recognize the multiple senses of these words,
but they tend to show that the cognate word is usually a possible translation
for each of the senses, though it may not be the best option. For some of the
senses, these dictionaries provide alternative translations which may be more
appropriate.
Let us look at one possible way to divide the senses
of Eng. delicate and the different
ways to express them in Spanish. This division borrows from those found in
several different English and English-Spanish dictionaries, but it is adapted
primarily from the entry for delicate
in Random House Webster’s Unabridged
Dictionary since it provides examples. Several senses of delicate from this dictionary entry have
been left out, including very rare, and archaic and obsolete ones. Note that
although the most common senses of Eng. delicate
translate as delicado, not all the
senses do. Thus, although these two words are good friends, they are not
perfect friends, which is not at all something unexpected.
1. fine in texture, quality,
construction, etc.: a delicate lace
collar.
[This sense of delicate, used primarily for small, dainty things, is probably best expressed in Spanish as fino or esmerado, not delicado]
[This sense of delicate, used primarily for small, dainty things, is probably best expressed in Spanish as fino or esmerado, not delicado]
2. fragile; easily damaged; frail: delicate porcelain; a delicate child. [also, delicate
skin, etc.]
[This sense of delicate is best translated into Spanish as delicado]
[This sense of delicate is best translated into Spanish as delicado]
3. so fine as to be scarcely
perceptible; subtle: a delicate flavor.
[This ‘subtle, not strong’ sense of delicate is probably not best translated as delicado but as fino, or suave ‘lit. soft’ if it is scarcely perceptible to the touch or even to sight]
[This ‘subtle, not strong’ sense of delicate is probably not best translated as delicado but as fino, or suave ‘lit. soft’ if it is scarcely perceptible to the touch or even to sight]
4. soft or faint, as color: a delicate shade of pink.
[This sense is related to the previous one, as applied to colors, and suave is also probably the best translation, cf. un tono de rosa suave]
[This sense is related to the previous one, as applied to colors, and suave is also probably the best translation, cf. un tono de rosa suave]
5. fine or precise in action or
execution; capable of responding to the slightest influence: a delicate instrument.
[This sense would definitely not be translated into Spanish as delicado; in Spanish, instrumento delicado could only refer to an instrument that breaks easily; a better translation of delicate here would be preciso]
[This sense would definitely not be translated into Spanish as delicado; in Spanish, instrumento delicado could only refer to an instrument that breaks easily; a better translation of delicate here would be preciso]
6. [sensitive] requiring great care,
caution, or tact: a delicate
international situation.
[This sense or senses (‘needing care’, ‘needing skill’, ‘needing tact’) is/are obviously related to from sense #2 and some dictionaries collapse them. They mostly translate into Spanish as delicado]
[This sense or senses (‘needing care’, ‘needing skill’, ‘needing tact’) is/are obviously related to from sense #2 and some dictionaries collapse them. They mostly translate into Spanish as delicado]
7. distinguishing subtle differences: a
delicate eye; a delicate sense of smell.
[Similar to sense #5; the best translation of this sense of delicate is fino]
[Similar to sense #5; the best translation of this sense of delicate is fino]
8. dainty or choice, as food: delicate tidbits.
[This sense does not translate as delicado either, but as exquisito or fino; cf. the discussion on Eng. delicacy below]
[This sense does not translate as delicado either, but as exquisito or fino; cf. the discussion on Eng. delicacy below]
Finally, let us return to the Spanish adjective delgado ‘thin, slim, fine’. This is a patrimonial
descendant of Lat. dēlicātum which has
narrowed and specialized its meaning a great deal, one that arose presumably because
things and people that are thin tend to be more delicate (easily broken in the
case of objects and less healthy in the case of people).
Spanish delgado/a today
can be used to describe people, in which case it translates as ‘thin’, but also
to describe other things for which we would not necessarily use the adjective thin in English, such as cloth or thread,
e.g. hilo delgado ‘fine thread’.
Occasionally delgado is used with the
sense of ‘slim’, ‘trim’, or ‘slender’, i.e. as ‘gracefully thin’ (COED), rather
than just ‘thin’. In this sense, delgado/a
is synonymous with esbelto/a.
Sp. delgado is often
a synonym of flaco/a, a semi-learned descendant
of Latin flaccus ‘flabby, flaccid, hanging
down’, a word of unknown origin. In the Middle Ages, flaco meant ‘weak’, but by the 15th century this word already had
the meaning it has today, ‘thin’. However, Sp. flaco has managed to retain a somewhat negative connotation, more
like Eng. skinny (‘excessively thin’)
or even scrawny (cf. Sp. flacucho, delgaducho, esquelético, escuchimizado, etc.).
Eng. delicacy and other related words
The English noun delicacy [ˈdɛ.lɪ.kə.si] (pl. delicacies) was created in English in the
14th century out of the Middle English adjective delicat(e) and the Latinate suffix ‑cy, which is a descendant of Lat. ‑cia or ‑tia (and Ancient Greek
‑κια ‑kia, ‑τια ‑tia) and which creates abstract
nouns. (It is cognate with semi-learned Spanish ‑cia and ‑cía , as well as
patrimonial ‑ez and ‑eza, cf. Part I, Chapter 5.)
The loss of the final ‑t‑ sound of delicate in delicacy is also found in derivations of other words ending in the
sound [t] with this suffix, such as obstinacy,
from obstinate, and privacy, from private.
Since Eng. delicacy
is an English creation, it is not surprising that it does not have a cognate in
Spanish. Thus, the several senses of this word translate by means of different
words into Spanish. The Concise Oxford English
Dictionary (COED) gives four senses for delicacy,
the American Heritage Dictionary (AHD)
gives eight, and the Random House Webster’s
Unabridged Dictionary (RHWUD) gives eleven (one of them obsolete), and the
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (DOCE) has only three.
The most common sense for Eng. delicacy for most modern
speakers of English is probably the food-related one, which means ‘a choice or expensive
food’, as in a Greek delicacy. This sense
translates into Spanish as manjar or,
less commonly, as exquisitez or bocado exquisito (see the discussion below regarding the word delicatessen). This sense of delicacy is perhaps the most common one
today, and it is a rather old one, since it appeared in writing soon after the
word was created, in the early 15th century.
Another major sense of Eng. delicacy is, undoubtedly, ‘the quality of being delicate’, with any
of the various senses of the word delicate
that we saw in the preceding section, including the sense of ‘beauty based on
fragility, slightness, or softness’, or the sense of ‘requiring great care, caution, or tact’. All these senses
tend to be translated into
Spanish as delicadeza, a noun derived in Spanish from the adjective delicado with the patrimonial Spanish suffix
‑eza that creates abstract nouns and
which is derived from Lat. ĭ‑tĭa very
much like the Eng. ‑cy suffix in delicacy. The ‘tact’ sense of the word delicacy, for instance, as in the phrase
We broached the subject with great delicacy, translates into Spanish as delicadeza, cf. Abordamos el tema con
gran delicadeza. Another way to translate this sense of delicacy in some cases is with a nominalized
form of the adjective delicado, with
the nominalizing neuter article lo, as
in lo delicado del tema ‘the delicacy of the subject’. However,
Sp. delicadeza does not always translate
as delicacy, but rather as thoughtfulness when referring to tact
(synonymous with amabilidad
‘kindness’), or frailty when
referring to health.
In addition, there are some idiomatic expressions with the word
delicadeza in Spanish, such as tener la delicadeza de ‘to be kind enough to’, as in Tenga la delicadeza de venir
a tiempo
‘Be kind enough to arrive on time’, and con
delicadeza ‘delicately, gently’.
Spanish has created
a negative version of delicadeza with
the negative prefix in‑, namely indelicadeza, which has a cognate in English
indelicacy [ɪn.ˈdɛ.lɪ.kə.sɪ], but
they are both very rare. Both languages seem to prefer to use phrases to express
the antonyms of Eng. delicacy and Sp.
delicadeza. Thus, for English, we have
lack of tack to refer to a person’s
indelicate behavior, or as tactless act when referring to an action. The Spanish
equivalents would be falta de delicadeza/tacto,
for both senses.
There is
also a less common masculine version of the Spanish noun delicadeza, namely delicadez. This noun is sometimes used
as a synonym of delicadeza in some
contexts, but it also has some more negative senses, such as ‘physical or
character weakness’, and ‘susceptibility, sensitivity’, which are perhaps more
common.
Note that
English also has another abstract noun derived from the adjective delicate, this one derived by means of a
native (Germanic) suffix, namely ‑ness,
i.e. delicateness [ˈdɛ.lɪ.kət.nɪs].
The OED defines is as ‘The quality of being delicate, delicacy. The opposite of
roughness, coarseness, grossness’. This noun is already attested in the first
half of the 16th century, but it is still much less common than delicacy. This noun too typically translates
into Spanish as delicadeza.
Finally, English
has the word delicatessen, which is obviously related to the word delicate and delicacy, because of the similarity in form and in meaning. This
word’s meaning is ‘a shop selling cooked meats, cheeses, and unusual or foreign
prepared foods’ (COED). This word is a fairly recent (1889) borrowing from German
delikatessen, plural of delikatesse ‘a delicacy, fine food’, which
itself is a 16th century borrowing from French délicatesse, a noun derived from the learned adjective délicat, meaning ‘fine’ (see above), from
Latin dēlicātus (see above).
In recent
years, Spanish has borrowed the word delicatessen
from English, also spelled delicatesen
(with one s), which is the preferred
spelling according to the Academy’s Diccionario
panhispánico de dudas now that the word is no longer considered a foreign
word (Sp. extranjerismo). (Note that
the DLE still only has the version of the word with two s’s.)
Spanish has
changed the meaning of the English word somewhat, however. Like its English
source, Sp. delicatesen can mean ‘store
where fine foods are sold’ (‘establecimiento donde se venden manjares selectos’,
DPD; ‘tienda donde se venden delicatessen’,
DLE). However, like in the German original, the word can also mean ‘fine foods’
(‘alimentos selectos’, DLE). When used to refer to a store, the word can be
masculine or feminine and does not change in the plural: el/la delicatesen, los/las
delicatesen (DPD). But when the word is used to refer to ‘fine foods’, it
is strictly plural, just like it was in German, and feminine: unas delicatesen ‘some fine foods’.
The
Academy’s Diccionario panhispánico de
dudas tells us, however, that the traditional Spanish term exquisiteces (plural of exquisitez) can be used instead in most
contexts (see above). In other words, it is an unnecessary loanword. However, because
it has become established in some contexts, and because it is used by more
‘respectable’ members of society, we may add, the word is not considered a barbarism.[a]
[a] The noun esquisitez is derived
from the adjective exquisito/a, by
means of the suffix ‑ez that we just
saw. This word means ‘exquisite’ when referring to most high-quality things,
such as music or cloth; ‘delicious’, when referring to food; and ‘refined’ when
describing a person’s manners. The noun exquisitez
can mean either ‘the quality of being exquisito’
or ‘something that is exquisito’, in
particular delicious foods.
