PROBLEMA
Latin Lemma
problēma, -ătis from Gk πρόβλημα
Latin POS
N
Latin Meaning
question proposed for solution, a problem; enigma, riddle, puzzle L&S
Spanish
Portuguese
French
Italian
English
English Lemma
problem
English POS
English First attestation
» How hadde this cherl ymaginacioun / To shewe swich a probleme to the frere? (OED: Chaucer, The Summoner’s Tale, c. 1382)
» Fage to þi man & moeue hym þat he schewe to þee what betokneþ þe probleme (OED: Wycliffite Early Version, late 14C) (This is a translation of the Vulgate Judges 14:15: blandire viro tuo et suade ei ut indicet tibi quid significet problema.)
English Semantic history
» "(mathematical) problem" 17C
Ye variety of Problems that may be put about a right-angled triangle, divided into two right Triangles by a perpendicular falling from the right Angle in the Hypothenuse (OED: John Collins, 1673)
» "difficulty to be overcome" 18C
The grand political problem in all ages has been to invent the best combination or distribution of the supreme powers of legislation and execution (OED: J. Otis, 1764)
Cultural transmission
Problema and its congeners were almost certainly introduced into Western European intellectual discourse as a result of Bartolomeo da Messina’s 13th-century translation of the Problemata Aristotelis from Greek into Latin and the subsequent commentary (Expositio succinta Problematum Aristotelis, also in Latin) by Pietro d’Abano. The first attestation in French is Évrart de Conti’s translation of these two works.
French is regarded as the most apparent source for English use in Chaucer OED. However, in the contemporaneous first attestation in French, it is clear from the context that problemes is an equivalence of convenience which is far from integrated even into cultured written language, since it needs explanation as fortes questions, and it therefore seems probable that it was not yet current in French at the time.
It seems likely that in 20C a number of common collocations in Spanish and French (possessive + problema / problème, sin problema / pas de problème, problema / problème + adjective) are the result of calquing from English. TLF regards Fr il n’y a pas de problème (first attested 1963) as a calque from English.