The development of the meaning of words is an important part of the history of a language, and it can be argued that of all the elements of language, meaning is least resistant to change. Yet the semantic history of Spanish words has received relatively little attention from scholars. An important source of information is Corominas and Pascual (1980–91), but etymological dictionaries such as this do not give systematic and consistent detail on the developing meaning of the words of the language, let alone of the causes of change. In the absence of a full-scale historical dictionary of Spanish (the Spanish Academy's Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (Real Academia Española 1972–) has not yet reached the letter B-), any discussion of its semantic development is inevitably incomplete and is likely to be at least partially inaccurate.

Existing historical grammars of Spanish lack chapters dealing exclusively or predominantly with semantic development and what follows is an (admittedly provisional) attempt to fill this identifiable gap. It should also be made clear that there are no ‘rules’ of semantic development which might be comparable with statements of, say, phonological development; examples of semantic change remain just that: examples. The structure of the discussion follows Ullmann's (1962) account of meaning-change, distinguishing between its causes, its nature and its consequences.

Causes of semantic change

Since the appearance of Ogden and Richards's now classic treatment of meaning (1923), it has been accepted that there is no direct relationship between the words (or symbols) of language and the things and events of the ‘real world’.