This article offers a corrective to the widely held idea that the modern concept of spirituality is traceable to the seventeenth century French notion of spiritualité. Instead, the argument is made that the sixteenth and seventeenth century Spanish terms spiritual and spiritualidad are earlier expressions of the modern concept of spirituality. The article opens with an examination of the place of spirituality in the academic study of religion and proceeds to a discussion of the premises of conceptual history and modern lexicography. In the closing section, the author analyses a plethora of lexicographical and other primary source material from the medieval to the early modern periods that demonstrate the usage of the terms spirital and espiritualidad in Spain as well as in colonial Latin America. Among the sources examined are Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana (Madrid: Luis Sánchez, 1611); Fernando de Valverde, Vida de Jesu Christo nuestro señor (Lima: Luis de Lyra, 1657); and Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Madrid: En la imprenta de Francisco del Hierro, 1726–1739).

这篇文章纠正了广泛持有的观念，即现代灵性概念可追溯到 17 世纪法国的灵性概念。相反，有人认为 16 和 17 世纪的西班牙语术语“精神”和“精神”是现代精神概念的早期表达. 本文首先考察了灵性在宗教学术研究中的地位，然后讨论了概念史和现代词典编纂的前提。在结尾部分，笔者分析辞书等初级原材料的从中世纪到展示术语的使用的早期现代时期过多论精神和espiritualidad在西班牙，以及在殖民拉丁美洲。检查的来源包括 Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco、Tesoro de la lengua castellana（马德里：Luis Sánchez，1611）；Fernando de Valverde，Vida de Jesu Christo nuestro señor（利马：Luis de Lyra，1657）；和Diccionario de la lengua castellana （马德里：En la imprenta de Francisco del Hierro，1726-1739）。