This is Part 8. Go to Part 7
Other words containing the root prŏb-
Eng. approve
~ Sp. aprobar and related words
The cognate verbs Eng. approve
~ Sp. aprobar are fairly close
friends (have very similar meanings), but there are some differences in their
meanings and uses, as we shall see. Ultimately they both come from Lat. apprŏbāre ‘to assent to as good,
to regard as good, to approve, to favor’ (L&S), a verb related to the verb prŏbāre from which it differs by
having the prefix ad‑ ‘to’, which changed to ap‑ before a root
that started with p‑: ad + prŏbāre
Ž
adprŏbāre, apprŏbāre. As we can see, the meaning
of this verb is the same as one of the meanings of the verb prŏbāre, the second one that we
listed above.
English borrowed this word through Old French aprover
around the year 1300 (cf. Modern French approuver [apʀuˈve]). As we mentioned in the preceding
section, there is a second, but rare, verb approve in English that is
unrelated to this one. The second verb approve has a similar origin as and
shares a root with the verb improve that we mentioned earlier.[1]
One English verb approve, the one that descends from Lat.
apprŏbāre, has two main, related
meanings. One, is a transitive use of this verb (with a direct object) and it
means ‘[to] officially accept as satisfactory’ (COED) or ‘to officially accept
a plan, proposal etc.’ (LDCE), as in The conference approved a proposal for
a referendum (LDCE). We will refer to this meaning as the ‘approve before
the fact by a competent authority’ sense.
The second sense is an intransitive one (without a direct object),
typically with an object with the preposition of, an ‘of prepositional
phrase’, which can be defined as ‘[to] believe that someone or something is
good or acceptable’ (COED) or ‘to think that someone or something is good,
right, or suitable’ (LDCE), as in I approve of what you’re doing. We will
refer to this sense as the ‘approve after the fact by an interested party’. Note
that the of-prepositional phrase complement may be left out if
understood, as in My parents (don’t) approve.
There is antonym of this second sense of the verb approve
(but not the first one), namely disapprove. According to the OED, this
verb was created (derived) in English from the verb approve and the
negative prefix dis‑ in the mid-16th century. However, there is a French
verb désapprouver that is attested a few years earlier, in 1535 (LGR),
so English may very well have borrowed or calqued the verb disapprove
from French. If so, the verb was formed in French from the verb approuver
and the Latinate prefix des‑ (equivalent to dis‑ in English).
What is clear is that these antonyms do not descend from a Latin verb but were
rather created in the modern languages, since Latin never attached the prefix dĭs‑ to the verb apprŏbāre.
Eng. approve also has a few additional senses that
are now rare or archaic, according to the more complete dictionaries. One of
them is the sense ‘display, exhibit, make proof of’ (SOED), which,
interestingly, is similar to one of the senses of prove. This shows the
close historical connection between these two verbs, one that goes back to
their Latin ancestors, since as we saw there is a partial overlap of meanings between
the two Latin verbs, prŏbāre and apprŏbāre.
In Spanish, aprobar is attested in the mid-13th
century (with the spelling aprovar). At the time, this verb seems to
have been solely a synonym or variant of (some of the senses of) the verb probar,
much like Eng. approve could in the past be a synonym of prove,
as we just saw (DCEH). The word aprobar is not attested with the current
meaning (similar to the Latin and English ones) until the 15th century, perhaps
under the influence of French approuver and/or of Latin apprŏbāre.
The main meaning of Sp. aprobar is the same as the
first meaning of Eng. approve, namely ‘approve before the fact by a
competent authority’, as in El comité aprobó el plan ‘The committee
approved the plan’. Note, however, that if the thing that is being approved is
not explicitly mentioned and it is merely understood, then Spanish would not
use this verb, like English would approve, but rather expressions such
as dar su aprobación, dar el visto bueno, or estar de acuerdo.
In English, it is possible for the verb approve to be used intransitively
with the first sense, as in We asked to leave and she approved, but this
is not possible in Spanish.
The second sense of Eng. approve, the ‘approve after
the fact by an interested party’ sense, does not typically translate into
Spanish with the verb aprobar. To translate that sense of the English
verb, Spanish would use other expressions such as gustar or ver con
buenos ojos, as in My parents don’t approve of my friends = Sp. A
mis padres no les gustan (caen bien) mis amigos, or They didn't approve
of me smoking = Sp. No veían con buenos ojos que yo fumara. Some
dictionaries say that aprobar may be used to translate the ‘approve
after the fact by an interested party’ sense of Eng. approve, but that is
arguably not the most common way to express that meaning in Spanish.
We mentioned that English had an antonym of approve,
namely disapprove, for the second sense of that verb. Spanish too has a
cognate of that verb, namely desaprobar. This verb, curiously, has a
very similar meaning to its English cognate, meaning that it has a ‘disapprove
after the fact by an interested party’. The antonym of the ‘disapprove before
the fact by a competent authority’ sense, on the other hand, would be rechazar,
denegar, oponerse or disentir, but not desaprobar. As
we saw earlier, this verb common to English, French and Spanish was probably
derived in French first, as désapprouver (1535), from where it was
borrowed by English as disapprove and by Spanish as desaprobar.
Remember that in Latin, the antonyms of apprŏbāre
were imprŏbāre and rĕprŏbāre, but these verbs have not
resulted in English and Spanish verbs that are the antonyms of Eng. approve
and Sp. aprobar (but see below).
So, we saw that Spanish aprobar shares one
sense with Eng. approve, but not the other one of this latter verb’s
senses. Similarly, Sp. aprobar has a second sense that English approve
does not have. Actually, Spanish aprobar has two additional, closely
related senses, which are typically used in academic settings. The two senses are
the following, shown here with definitions, paraphrases, and examples:
- aprobar = dar un aprobado en (‘to allow to go through an examination or academic course successfully’), e.g. El profesor aprobó a los alumnos (en el examen/en el curso) ‘The teacher/professor passed the students (on the test/the class)’; the DLE defines this sense as ‘declarar hábil y competente a alguien’
- aprobar = sacar un aprobado en (‘‘to undergo an examination or an academic course with favorable results’), e.g. El alumno aprobó el examen/la asignatura ‘The student passed the test/the subject’; or intransitively El alumno aprobó en matemáticas ‘The student passed math (class)’; the DLE defines this sense as ‘obtener la calificación de aprobado en una asignatura o examen’
Let us end this section with a mention of the nouns related
to (and derived from) the cognate verbs Eng. approve ~ Sp. aprobar,
namely Eng. approval ≈ Sp. aprobación. These two nouns could not
cognates, but rather semi-cognates or paronyms, since they have different
endings: Eng. ‑al vs. Sp. ‑ación. (Although they are not cognates,
they are definitely cognate or related, since they share the root and the stem,
cf. Part I, Chapter 1.) Eng. approval was formed, in English, from the
verb approve and the Latinate suffix ‑al that derives nouns (e.g.
refusal, denial, etc., cf. Part I, Chapter 8,
§8.5.3.2).
This noun was created in the late 17th century but it was rare until the 19th
century, having to compete with its synonym approvance, which is now
archaic. Sp. aprobación, on the other hand, is a loanword from Lat. apprŏbātĭo
‘an approving, allowing, assenting to, approbation, acquiescence (most frequently
in Cicero)’ (L&S). This Latin noun was derived from the verb apprŏbāre
by means of the suffix ‑ĭōn‑
that attached itself to the passive participle stem of the verb, apprŏbā‑t‑
in this case, to form nouns.
As for the meaning of these two paronyms, they both refer to
the action or result of approving. However, just like the related verbs are not
fully equivalent in meaning, so too the nouns differ somewhat as to how they
are used. Sp. aprobación is more about ‘approval before the fact by a
competent authority’, and it is synonymous with consentimiento, conformidad.
In addition, there are a few other synonyms of this word that can be used for
that sense as well as for the ‘approval after the fact by an interested party’
sense, such as visto bueno, beneplácito, and even gusto.
The antonym of Eng. approval is disapproval, a
noun formed in English in the mid-17th century as an antonym of approval.
In Spanish, the antonym of aprobación is desaprobación. This word
could have come from French disapprobation, a word attested in that language in
the late 18th century. Sp. desaprobación, however, is somewhat more
formal and less common than its English counterpart disapproval. Eng. disapproval
would usually be translated as rechazo, condena, or disconformidad,
not as desaprobación.
Note that English also has a cognate of Sp. aprobación,
namely Eng. approbation, a somewhat formal word meaning ‘official praise
or approval’ (LDCE). This is either a direct late-14th century loan from
written Latin or else it was borrowed through French, which had borrowed this word from
written Latin as early as the mid-13th century (first attested in 1265).
[1] The
second word approve in English is a legal term. It can also be spelled approw.
Like improve, it is an Old French loan derived from the root prou ‘profit’
(see previous footnote). Its meaning is ‘to make profit to oneself of (e.g.
land), by increasing the value or rent. especially Said of the lord of a
manor enclosing or appropriating to his own advantage common land, as permitted
by the Statute of Merton (20 Hen. III. c. iv.).’ (OED).
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