# usted
## Spanish
### Alternative forms

* Vd., Ud.

### Etymology

From vuestra merced (lit. "your mercy" (etymological) or "your grace" (idiomatic)), an honorific style. In 17th-century Spanish, there were a number of variants, including the intermediate forms vuesasted and vusted. Cf. Portuguese você, Galician vostede, Catalan vostè, Asturian vusté and Sardinian bostè. The following list has the variants reported by Coromines and Pascual, with their reported first year of attestation:
* bosanzé, 1620 (Lope de Vega, Pedro Carbonero, portrayed as said by (ex-)Muslims)
* boxanxé, ca. 1631 (Quevedo, Libro de todas las cosas y otras muchas más, portrayed as said by (ex-)Muslims)
* usted, 1620
* voarced, 1635
* voazé, 1625 (Vélez de Guevara, El Rey en su imagen, portrayed as criminal cant)
* vuarced, ca. 1630
* vuasted, 1617
* vucé, 1626
* vuesarced, 1621
* vuesasted, 1597
* vuested, 1635
* vusté (in Quiñones de Benavente, died 1651)
* vusted, 1619

### Pronunciation

* IPA: /usˈted/ [usˈt̪eð̞]
* Audio:(file)
* Rhymes: -ed
* Syllabification: us‧ted

### Pronoun

usted m or f by sense (plural ustedes)
* (formal) second person formal; you (singular)
* (Costa Rica, Colombia, chiefly Bogotá) second person informal; you (singular)

#### Usage notes

* Functionally, usted and ustedes are second person pronouns, but grammatically, the verbs they govern are conjugated in the third person. (This is the same distinction as seen in English with the difference between "You are welcome to stay here longer" but "Your Excellency is welcome to stay here longer.") In Andalucia, ustedes uses the forms associated with vosotros. See Appendix:Spanish pronouns for details. Compare Sanskrit भवत् (bhávat).

#### Derived terms

* ustedear

### See also

| | | | | nominative | dative | accusative | disjunctive |
| first person | singular | singular | singular | yo | me | me | mí$^1$ |
| first person | plural | masculine$^2$ | masculine$^2$ | nosotros | nos | nos | nosotros |
| first person | plural | feminine | feminine | nosotras | nos | nos | nosotras |
| second person | singular | tuteo | tuteo | tú | te | te | ti$^1$ |
| second person | singular | voseo | voseo | vos | te | te | vos |
| second person | singular | formal$^3$ | formal$^3$ | usted | le, se$^4$ | lo/la$^5$ | usted |
| second person | plural | familiar$^6$ | masculine$^2$ | vosotros | os | os | vosotros |
| second person | plural | familiar$^6$ | feminine | vosotras | os | os | vosotras |
| second person | plural | formal/general$^3$ | formal/general$^3$ | ustedes | les, se$^4$ | los/las$^5$ | ustedes |
| third person | singular | masculine$^2$ | masculine$^2$ | él | le, se$^4$ | lo | él |
| third person | singular | feminine | feminine | ella | le, se$^4$ | la | ella |
| third person | singular | neuter | neuter | ello$^7$ | le, se$^4$ | lo | ello |
| third person | plural | masculine$^2$ | masculine$^2$ | ellos | les, se$^4$ | los | ellos |
| third person | plural | feminine | feminine | ellas | les, se$^4$ | las | ellas |
| third person | reflexive | reflexive | reflexive | — | se | se | sí$^1$ |
* Not used with con; conmigo, contigo, and consigo are used instead, respectively
* Like other masculine Spanish words, masculine Spanish pronouns can be used when the gender of the subject is unknown or when the subject is plural and of mixed gender.
* Treated as if it were third-person for purposes of conjugation and reflexivity
* If le or les precedes lo, la, los, or las in a clause, it is replaced with se (e.g., Se lo dije instead of Le lo dije)
* Depending on the implicit gender of the object being referred to
* Used primarily in Spain
* Used only in rare circumstances

### References

* ↑ de Gonge, Bob (2005) “El desarrollo de las variantes de vuestra merced a usted”, in Actas del II Congreso de la Región Noroeste de Europa de la Asociación de Lingüística y Filología de América Latina (ALFAL), ISSN 1139-8736
* ↑ Joan Coromines, José A[ntonio] Pascual (1983) “usted”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico [Critic Castilian and Hispanic Etymological Dictionary] (in Spanish), volume V (Ri–X), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 844

### Further reading

* “usted”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10