Noun: menester
Gender: m
Hyphenation: me‧nes‧ter
| Singular m | menester |
| Plural m | menesteres |
Sample Sentences
-
Es menester que actuemos con prontitud. (It is necessary for us to act swiftly.)
-
Era menester apaciguarlos. (Appeasing them was a must.)
-
Afligióse ésta, porque no tenía dinero, pero el Duende vino en su auxilio, y hablándole desde el techo, en presencia del magistrado, le dijo: «Ahí tienes, María, para que pagues la multa», y dejó caer sobre sus faldas el dinero que habían menester. [1915, Julio Vicuña Cifuentes, Mitos y Supersticiones Recogidos de la Tradición Oral Chilena, page 54:]
-
los menesteres del hogar (household duties)
Nouns inflected like menester
ionizador,
serbal,
serial,
serpol,
serval,
depurador,
sector,
sentir,
sensor,
senior,
sauzal,
sartal,
safrol,
santol,
saibey,
salmer,
urunday,
definidor,
cristóbal,
superconductor, etc. (List truncated at 20 nouns)
Etymology
Inherited from Old Spanish menester, mester, inherited from Latin ministerium, with an irregular loss of the expected final -o. Coromines and Pascual explain this loss as due to being commonly found in the phrase es menester que, triggering syncope between -ter(o) and que, also arguing against the possibility of an Occitan borrowing due to the word being of "popular" semantics and being found early and in all kinds of texts. Doublet of ministerio. See: Latin Nouns '
ministerium'.
Verbs referencing "menester"
Galician Nouns
mester.
Translations