1. The meaning of the word cariño
The Spanish word cariño is interesting from the point of view of its origin, although it does not have an English cognate. It is a masculine noun that translates into English in different contexts as love, affection, fondness, loving care, tenderness, emotions that can be directed towards either people or things, indistinctly, as in the following phrases and sentences taken from the Oxford Spanish-English Dictionary (OSD):
- niños sedientos de cariño ‘children starved of affection’
- Fue la única persona que me dio cariño ‘She was the only person who showed me any affection’
- Le tengo mucho cariño a este anillo ‘I'm very fond of this ring’
- Siento muchísimo cariño por ella ‘I have a great affection/fondness for her, I am very fond of her’
- Te ha tomado mucho cariño ‘He’s become very fond of you’
Actually, although dictionaries does not mention this,
English love is one of the possible
ways to translate Sp. cariño and
Spanish speakers often use the word cariño
to express feelings that English speakers would use the noun love, or the verb to love, to express, as in el
cariño a los hijos ‘the love for one’s children’ or Le tengo mucho cariño a mi nieto ‘I love my grandson very much’,
i.e. Sp. tener cariño ≈ Eng. love. In other words, Sp. cariño
can translate at least one of the many senses of the word love, one that can be described as ‘an intense emotional
attachment, as for a pet or treasured object’ (American Heritage Dictionary =
AHD). English speakers typically use the verb love rather than the noun love
(derived from the former by conversion) to express this feeling and, since Sp. cariño can only be a noun, a verb must
be added, resulting in the expression tener
cariño (a). Note that this feeling or emotion can also be applied to pets,
as in Esta perra me tiene mucho cariño,
a sentence that can be translated as ‘This
dog really likes me’, showing that sometimes Eng. like may also be equivalent to Sp. cariño.
Another sense of the noun cariño refers to demonstrations
of the emotions we just mentioned and then it can be translated as caress, hug, kiss, or cuddle. In these cases, cariño is usually accompanied by the
verb hacer, as in hacer(se) cariño(s), as in the following
examples from the same source. This sense is often used in the plural, as cariños, and there may be dialectal
differences as to how the word is used with this sense.
- Le hice un cariñito al niño ‘I gave the little boy a cuddle (o kiss etc)’
- La pareja se hacía cariño (AmL) ‘The couple were having a little cuddle (o a hug and a kiss etc)’
- No llores, cariño ‘Don’t cry, dear’ [= darling, sweetheart, etc.]
The collocation coger
cariño a is a very common one,
the equivalent of to grow fond of. It
is used for either people or things, as the following examples show. (Note that
tomar would be used instead of coger in dialects in which this verb has
become a taboo word because of its use as a euphemism for the sex act.)
- Le he cogido cariño a ese alumno ‘I’ve grown fond of that student’
- Le he cogido cariño a esta taza ‘I’ve grown fond of/attached to this mug’
There is another sense of the word cariño, one found when used with the
preposition con, forming the
adverbial expression con cariño,
which can translate as tenderly, lovingly, with loving care, etc. The Spanish language Academies’ (ASALE) Diccionario de la lengua española (DLE)
defines this sense as ‘care or love with which a work is done or a thing is
treated’ (‘esmero o afición con que se hace una labor o se trata una cosa’).
This sense is typically found in verb phrases with the verb tratar ‘to treat’, as in the following
example from OSD (this dictionary subsumes this sense with the primary one, but
other dictionaries treat it as a separate sense):
- Trátame el coche con cariño ‘Take good care of my car’ [= treat my car with loving care]
Senses for
cariño in the Academies’ DLE
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1.
affection
2.
demonstration
of affection
3.
tender
loving care (with con)
4.
obs. nostalgia
5.
dial. gift
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There is yet a fourth sense for this word in the
DLE, one that other dictionaries do not mention. It is the ‘yearning,
nostalgia’ sense (‘añoranza, nostalgia’). The DLE does not say that this sense
is obsolete, but that is just what it is, which is why other dictionaries do
not mention it. Interestingly, the ‘nostalgia’ sense is thought to be the
original sense or the word, as we shall see below.
Finally, the Academies’ dictionary gives us yet a fifth
sense for the word cariño, the
‘present, (friendly) gift’ (‘regalo, obsequio’). This sense is dialectal in
Spanish today, found in places like Chile, Bolivia, and Central America
according to DCECH or María Moliner’s
dictionary. This rare sense is found early on in Spanish, namely in the works
of 17th century Spanish author Pedro Calderón de la Barca.
2. The origin of the word cariño
What is the source of this noun that
does not seem to have a cognate or related word in English? One is tempted to
think that this word could be related to the English word care, a noun and a verb, as in the collocation loving care, which is one of the senses of cariño. However, this word is a native English word that is unrelated
to the Spanish one. The noun care comes
from Old English caru or cearu ‘sorrow, anxiety, grief’ and the
verb care comes from Old English carian or cearian ‘be anxious, grieve; to feel concern or interest’.[b]
The root of these words, is not in any way related to the root in the word cariño, though, since we know that it
descends from a different Proto-Indo-European root.[c]
The word cariño
also brings to mind the Italian word caro/a
‘dear’ [ˈka.ɾo] and its French cognate cher fem. chère, both pronounced [ˈʃɛʀ],
that mean ‘dear’, ‘lovable, kind, sweet’, and ‘(be)loved’, as well as ‘expensive,
dear’. The ‘dear’ sense of these words translates into Spanish as querido/a, from the verb querer, which is an unrelated word, but
the ‘expensive’ sense does indeed translate into Spanish as caro/a, so perhaps cariño could be related to caro,
after all. These words descend from the Latin adjective cārus (fem. cāra, neut. cārum), which also had two meanings, ‘dear,
beloved’ and ‘expensive’, the second one derived from the former. This
adjectival root has been traced back to Proto-Italic *kāros, which has been derived from a Proto-Indo-European stem *kéh₂‑ro, from the root *keh₂- ‘to desire, to wish’, which is not
related to Sp. querer or to any other
English or Spanish words.[2]
(For an analysis of Sp. querer, from Lat.
quaerĕre ‘to
seek’, see Part II, Chapter 25,
§25.3.2.)
Related to the Latin adjective cārus is the abstract noun cārĭtas
(accusative: cārĭtātem),
source of Eng. charity and Sp. caridad, one of the Catholic Church’s theological
virtues, meaning ‘love of humankind and one’s neighbor’. Interestingly, however,
Lat. cārĭtas could mean ‘affection,
love’, much like cariño can, besides meaning
‘dearness, costliness, high price’, of course (L&S). It makes one wonder if
this word might have influenced the change in meaning of cariño from ‘nostalgia’ to ‘affection’ some 500 years ago, as we will see below. By the way,
the Christian meaning ‘love of humankind’ of Eng. charity, a 12th century loanword from Old French, is now at the bottom
of the list on dictionaries’ senses for this word, with some dictionaries even saying
that the meaning is archaic.
Some scholars, such as the Colombian Rufino José Cuervo in
his influential late-19th-century dictionary, have suggested that the noun cariño is indeed related to the word caro/a, even though this adjective does
not mean ‘dear’ in Spanish (anymore?). The assumption was that cariño must have come from Galician or
Portuguese, where the cognate adjective caro
does have that meaning. The ending ‑iñ‑o,
common in these languages, would seem to betray such an origin. However, there
are problems with this etymology since cariño
is not attested in Portuguese until the 19th century (in Spanish it is attested
in the 16th century) and the suffix ‑iño
is strictly an adjectival suffix in Galician-Portuguese, not a nominal one.
Portuguese does now have a cognate word carinho, with both the ‘affection, fondness’ sense and a ‘caress’
sense, the latter being attested earlier in this language than the former. It
is now thought, however, that Portuguese got this word from Spanish, and not
the other way around. Portuguese also has a derived verb acariñar that means ‘to pet, caress’, equivalent to Sp. acariciar, derived from the noun caricia ‘caress’, which is unrelated to
the noun cariño, though it can be
synonymous with it in some contexts, as we have seen.[d]
Because of all of these obstacles with deriving the word cariño from the word caro, scholars now think the source of cariño is a different one. The word cariño is now thought by most experts,
such as the DCECH , to descend from the root căr‑ of the Latin verb cărēre that meant ‘to lack,
to be without’, ‘to be separated from’, and ‘to be deprived of’. This etymology
was first advanced by Austrian Romanist and Hispanist, Leo Spitzer in the early
20th century (DCECH).[3]
The word cariño
is first attested in Spanish in the early 16th century with the meaning
‘nostalgia, desire’, not with the meaning it has today, other than in Judeo-Spanish,
where it still means ‘nostalgia, anhelo de amor’). DCECH, following Spitzer, argues
that this noun is probably derived from a now rare Spanish verb cariñar borrowed from Aragonese and meaning
‘to miss, feel nostalgia for’ (‘sentir nostalgia o añoranza’, DLE). From the
meaning ‘nostalgia’, the sense ‘desire’ seems to have been derived fairly early
on, which is not an uncommon extension for the meaning ‘nostalgia’ to take, since
one desires what one misses or feels nostalgia for. Note that the Latin verb dēsīdĕrāre, source of Sp. desear and Eng. desire, in addition to the meaning ‘to long for, greatly wish for, to
desire something not possessed’, also had the meaning ‘to miss’, ‘with the predominant
idea of lacking, wanting’ (L&S).
lack Ž
nostalgia Ž desire Ž
affection Ž display of affection
|
From the meaning ‘longing’ and ‘desire’, the current
meaning of ‘affection, fondness’ is thought to have developed, a more major
jump in meaning. The final semantic change experienced by the word cariño was from ‘affection’ to
‘demonstration of affection’, which is but a small jump in meaning. These last
two senses still survive in the word cariño,
but the earlier ‘nostalgia’ and ‘desire’ can be said to have been lost today,
despite the DLE not indicating that that is the case. The ‘gift’ sense is, of
course, just a minor extension of the ‘demonstration of affection’ sense.
Presumably, the word cariño has been passed from Spanish to other Romance languages,
such as Portuguese and Galician, as we have seen, as well as Sicilian and Sardinian.
The verb carinyar is found today in
the Mallorcan dialect of Catalan, and the adjective carinyós (cf. Sp. cariñoso,
see below) is found in a 17th century Catalan dictionary (Lacavalleria).
According to this theory, the source of this noun would be the (originally) Aragonese
verb cariñar, which was also borrowed
by Spanish, but which is very rare in this language, a verb that would have
developed from Lat. cărēre
‘to lack, to be without; etc.’. The exact steps in the derivation of this verb
from the Latin verb cărēre
‘to lack’ is not known, however. It is not thought to have developed in
Spanish, however, because the ending ‑iñar
is quite rare in Spanish, only found in a few verbs such as the rare rapiñar ‘to pinch, steal’ and escudriñar ‘to scan, scrutinize, examine’.[e]
Thus, although the verb cariñar from
which the noun cariño is derived is
thought to come from Aragonese, the truth is that we do not know for sure the
history of these words or their exact origin and how they descend from Lat. cărēre. In
particular, we do not know where the fossilized morpheme ‑iñ‑ comes from.
car
|
iñ
|
ar
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?
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3. Words derived from cariño
3.1 Sp. cariñoso/a
Related to the noun cariño is the word cariñoso/a, an adjective derived in Spanish from the former noun by means of the adjectival suffix ‑os‑(o/a) that comes from Lat. ‑ōs‑(us/a/um). This very common adjective is attested first in the late 15th century. When referring to people (or animals), the DLE defines the sense as ‘that feels affection’ (‘Que siente cariño’), which translates with the adjectives loving or affectionate, as in una niña cariñosa ‘a loving/affectionate girl’, Es una madre muy cariñosa con sus hijos ‘She is very affectionate mother towards her children’ (DLE), or Es un niño muy cariñoso que da besos a todo el mundo ‘He is a very loving/affectionate child who goes around giving everybody kisses’ (Clave). Partial synonyms of this sense of cariñoso/a are afectuoso/a (paronym of Eng. affectionate), tierno/a (cognate of Eng. tender), mimosa/a (derived from mimo ‘cuddle; pampering; care; etc.’), and amoroso/a (derived from amor ‘love’).
When referring to actions, cariñoso/a can be defined as ‘that denotes or shows affection’ and
it often translates and as warm or heartfelt, as in un cariñoso saludo ‘a warm, heartfelt greeting’ (or ‘warm/kind regards’)
or una cariñosa bienvenida ‘a warm welcome’,
but also as affectionate as in un nombre cariñoso ‘an affectionate
name’ or ‘pet name’. Partial synonyms of this sense of cariñoso/a are afectuoso/a ‘affectionate’,
amoroso ‘loving, affectionate’,
tierno ‘affectionate; tender; fresh; etc.’, and cordial (cognate of Eng. cordial).
The DLE tells us that cariñoso/a
used to have another sense in the past, one that is now obsolete (Sp. desusado). The sense is ‘in love’ (Sp. ‘enamorado’).
There is also a dialectal sense of the adjective cariñoso/a mentioned in the DLE, namely the meaning ‘expensive’ (Sp.
‘caro’), which is supposedly used colloquially in Mexico and El Salvador.
3.2 Sp. encariñarse and des(en)cariñarse
We mentioned earlier that there was a verb cariñar that meant ‘to feel nostalgia’ (Sp. ‘sentir nostalgia’). That verb is obsolete in Modern Spanish, though it is still found in Aragonese, with that same meaning. But Spanish does have a quite common verb encariñar ‘to evoke affection/fondness’ which is derived from the noun cariño by means of the prefix en‑ (cf. Part I, Chapter 5, §5.6.1), e.g. El niño nos encariñó a todos. This verb is primarily used pronominally, i.e. intransitively and reflexively, as encariñarse (con) ‘to become fond (of), to grow attached (to)’, as in Todos nos encariñamos con él ‘We all fell in love with him’. As expected, the past participle of this verb, encariñado/a (con) can be used as an adjective, one that can be translated as attached (to) or fond (of) and it typically follows the verb estar, as in Estás demasiado encariñado con el dinero ‘You are too fond of money’. In other words, estar encariñado con is equivalent to tenerle cariño a that we saw earlier in the chapter.
The DLE has an antonym for encariñarse, namely descariñarse ‘to lose affection for someone or something’ (‘prnl. p. us. Perder el cariño y afición
a alguien o algo.’). The DLE also tells us that the noun is little used (p. us.), which is an understatement,
since this word is probably not known to most speakers of Spanish, though it
would not be hard for a Spanish speaker to understand this word in context the
first time it was heard. Other dictionaries do not give us this verb but rather
a similar one, namely desencariñarse,
which instead of replacing the en‑
prefix with the negative prefix des‑,
adds this last prefix before the former. At least three Spanish dictionaries
have the verb desencariñarse:
Larousse, Clave, and Vox. Some major Spanish dictionaries have neither word, however,
such as María Moliner. Additionally, several dictionaries give the antonym of
the noun cariño as descariño, including Larousse and Vox
(which had desencariñarse), the DLE
(which had descariñarse), and María
Moliner (which did not have either verb). As for the antonym of cariñoso/a, at least one thesaurus, Tesauro
Signum, gives the choice descariñado/a.
cariñ
|
o
|
||
en
|
ar(se)
|
||
des
|
arse
|
||
des
|
en
|
arse
|
|
des
|
o
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4. Other Latin words from the
root căr-
4.1 Sp. carecer
So, as we saw, the noun cariño is now thought to have been derived from an earlier verb cariñar, which is thought to be derived from the root of the Latin verb cărēre ‘to lack, to be without; to be separated from; to be deprived of’, though the exact derivation is not actually known. This Latin verb’s principal parts were căreō, cărēre, căruī, căritum. This verb has been reconstructed by some as coming from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱes‑ ‘to cut, to cut out’, which may have had a variant *kas‑. This etymology and the existence of the variant *kas‑ of the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱes‑ are not totally uncontroversial, however.[f] The senses of this verb mentioned earlier, such as ‘to lack’, are thought to derive from an earlier sense ‘to be cut off from’ (AHDIER). Once we see the intermediate meaning ‘cut off’ between ‘cut’ and ‘lack’, the meaning change doesn’t seem too far-fetched.
cut Ž
cut off Ž lack
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Note that the change from Lat. ‘lack’ to Sp.
‘to miss, feel nostalgia for’ is equally interesting and not too far-fetched either.
After all, the polysemous verb miss
in English, which comes from Proto-Germanic *missjan ‘to go wrong’, has developing a number of senses including
‘fail to hit, reach, or come into contact with’ and, notably, ‘notice the loss
or absence of’ and, derived from it, ‘feel regret or sadness at the absence of’
(COED). The cognate of this verb in Old Norse, missa, meant ‘to miss’ but also, interestingly, ‘to lack’.
lack Ž
nostalgia Ž affection
|
As we just said, the Latin verbal root căr‑ is thought to be a
direct descendant of PIE *ḱes- or,
actually, its variant *kas‑. PIE ḱ‑ is a palatal version of the voiceless
consonant before front vowels and we expect that to become c [k] in Latin (cf. Part I, Chapter 3).
As for the change from PIE ‑s‑ to Lat.
‑r‑, this represents a very common
sound change that took place in early Latin whenever an s was between two vowels, after first changing to the sound [z]. This
sound change is known as rhotacism. However, in Latin, the root căr‑ has the allomorph căs‑, with the original s,
when the following sound was a consonant and not a vowel, as we shall see
below.[g]
Some of the Latin words that had the root căr‑/căs‑ have been passed on to Spanish, and many of them
have cognates in English as well, as we shall see in this section. Curiously, only
one Romance language has a verb derived from the Latin verb cărēre, namely
Sicilian càriri. In Spanish, such a
verb would have been *carer or *carir, but there is no record of such a
verb ever having existed. However, Spanish and Portuguese are the only two
Romance languages that have verbs that descend from an extended version of this
verb, namely the verbs Sp. & Port. carecer,
which descend directly from the Late Latin or Vulgar Latin verb cărēscĕre.
Sp. carecer is first documented in
writing around the year 1400 (DCECH).
The verb cărēscĕre
is obviously an inchoative Latin verb, of the type that was derived from a
regular verb by means of the suffix ‑sc‑,
resulting in a 3rd conjugation verb with an inchoative meaning, that is, one that
denoted the beginning of an action, cf. Chapter 8, §8.4.3.5. From inchoative Latin verbs we get Spanish verbs
such as crecer, conocer, and establecer,
all of which insert a ‑z‑ in the
first person singular of the present tense: crezco,
conozco, and establezco, just like Sp. carecer does, cf. carezco ‘I lack’.
This inchoative verb seems to have appeared rather late in
Latin and it is extremely rare in the written record. Although the purely
inchoative meaning of this verb would have been ‘to begin to lack’, there is no
record of it ever having had that meaning. Some dictionaries give ‘to want’ as its
meaning (L&S), and others add a second meaning to that, namely ‘to be
without’. This is not too surprising, however, for inchoative verbs often
changed their meaning in unexpected ways. Interestingly, however, Spanish and
Portuguese carecer mean ‘to lack’,
exactly the same as Lat. cărēre
or the rare Late Lat. cărēscĕre.
Note that unlike Eng. lack,
which takes a direct object, as in He
lacks humor, Sp. carecer is an
intransitive verb which governs a prepositional phrase with the preposition de, as in Carece de humor ‘He/she/it lacks humor’. We should mention that Sp.
carecer is a bit of a fancy word,
even though it is not rare, and it is definitely a word every Spanish speaker
knows. Its partial synonym faltar,
conjugated like gustar, is a much
more common way to express the meaning ‘to lack’. Thus, Esta sopa carece de sal ‘This soup lacks salt’ sounds fancier than A esta sopa le falta sal, for example.
Note that in English too, lack is
somewhat of a fancy word that is often replaced by more common ones in speech.
Thus, although we can say This soup lacks
salt, that sounds a bit fancier than This
soup needs salt, for instance.
4.2 Sp. carente and carencia
Spanish has borrowed in recent times the present participle of the verb cărēre, namely cărēns cărentis (căr‑ent‑is), as the fancy adjective carente ‘lacking’, first found in the DRAE in 1925, as in carente de originalidad ‘lacking in originality’. Sp. carente was obviously borrowed from the accusative case form of this participle that ended in ‑entem (‑ent‑em), from whom the final ‑m would have been lost early on. Almost invariably, the adjective carente is used with a prepositional phrase with the preposition de, as in the example we just saw. In that way, the combination carente de is equivalent to the preposition sin ‘without’, just much fancier, or the combination falto de ‘lacking in, starved of, devoid of’ (GU).
Actually, centuries before borrowing the adjective carente, Spanish had already borrowed
the noun carencia ‘lack, shortage’
from Latin, e.g. Hay carencia de médicos ‘There’s
a lack of doctors’ (Vox). This word is first attested in the 15th century and
it appeared in a Spanish dictionary first in 1679. This word comes from
Ecclesiastical Latin noun cărentĭa
‘lack, penury, shortage’, which did not exist in Classical Latin.
(Ecclesiastical Latin is from 6-10th centuries.) It is derived from the stem căr‑ent‑ of the present
participle we just saw and the suffix ‑ĭa that formed feminine abstract
nouns in Latin from adjectives or present participle stems (căr‑ent‑ĭa).
4.3 Lat. căstus and related words
4.3.1 Lat. căstus/-a/-um
Lat. căstus
is a first/second declension adjective meaning primarily ‘morally pure,
unpolluted, spotless, guiltless, virtuous, etc.’ (L&S), a meaning derived
from an original meaning ‘cut off, separated’. As we could expect, the feminine
form of this adjective was casta, and
the neuter form was castum. The word contains
the same root căs‑ from Proto-Indo-European
*ḱes‑ that we have been looking at, plus the derivational suffix -t-(us/a/um) that formed adjectives (e.g.
ius-t-us ‘lawful, legal’ < iūs iūris ‘law; equity; etc.’), as well as passive participles
(cf. Part I, Chapter 8,
§8.4.3.3.3.2).
This suffix comes ultimately from Proto-Indo-European ultimately from the Proto-Indo-European
suffix ‑to‑, and thus, the source of this
Latin word’s stem has been reconstructed as *kas-to-. At one time, the ancestor of Lat. căstus may be been the passive participle of the ancestor
of the verb cărēre
(in Latin, this verb’s passive participle was the regular cărĭtus). The ‘pure’
meaning that this word has is presumably a figurative one, and the original meaning
was according to some ‘cut off from faults’ (cf. cărēre ‘to be cut off’) but it
may have also referred to a religious or ascetic state of separation or
abstinence.
English borrowed this adjective through Old French as chaste [ˈʧeɪ̯st]
in the 13th century. As the c > ch sound change reveals, this word did
not come from Norman French but rather from Parisian French. The Spanish
adjective casto/a is attested in the
13th century (Gonzalo de Berceo). The main meaning of the word chaste is ‘abstaining from extramarital,
or from all, sexual intercourse’ (COED). Another dictionary divides this meaning
into two: ‘innocent of unlawful sexual intercourse’ and ‘celibate’ (MWC). Some
dictionaries tell us that this meaning of the word is ‘old-fashioned’ (MWALD, Macmillan),
though adherents to some Christian dogmas might disagree. The connection between
chastity and sexual abstinence is not one that existed in Roman times, but rather
one that stems from the Christian tradition (see below).
Another sense of this word, according to most dictionaries,
which some label as ‘literary’, is ‘morally pure or decent : not sinful’ (MWALD),
‘pure in thought and act : modest’ (MWC), ‘not showing sexual feelings’ (LDOCE),
with the example given by all being a
chaste kiss on the cheek. Yet another
meaning of the word chaste is ‘without unnecessary ornamentation’ (COED) or ‘simple
and plain in style’ (LDOCE) or ‘severely simple in design or execution :
austere’ (MWC), as in a chaste nightgown.
Spanish casto/a
can be used with the first two senses of Eng. chaste, except perhaps for the last one, which would translate into
Spanish as sobrio, sencillo/a or castizo/a. The DLE is the only Spanish dictionary that tells us
that Sp. casto/o used to have the ‘austere’
sense, but it says it is now obsolete (‘ant.’).
4.3.2. Lat. castĭtas, castĭtātis
The derived cognate noun derived from this adjective are Eng.
chastity ~ Sp. castidad. These words ultimately come from Lat. castĭtātem ‘purity’ (nominative: castĭtas), an abstract noun derived from
the adjective căstus by means
of the suffix ‑ĭ‑tāt‑. English borrowed
the word chastity [ˈtʃʰæstəti] around the year 1200 from
Old French chastete, a term which referred
primarily to virginity and celibacy, that is, sexual purity as defined by the Church.
In Modern English, the word chastity can
be defined as ‘the principle or state of not having sex with anyone, or not with
anyone except your husband or wife’ (LDOCE), though according to other dictionaries
it can be equivalent to celibacy, namely ‘the state or practice of abstaining
from extramarital, or from all,
sexual intercourse’ (COED).
Chastity is one of the seven Christian virtues or heavenly
virtues adopted by the Christian Church Fathers, which consisted of the four
classical cardinal virtues of Aristotle and Plato: prudence, justice,
temperance, and courage (or fortitude), plus the three additional theological
virtues of faith, hope, and charity. The virtue of chastity served as the antidote
to one of the seven cardinal sins, namely lust. Roman Catholic priests, monks and
nuns take vows of chastity (Sp. votos de castidad).
The word chastity is
also often found in the collocation chastity
belt (Sp. cinturón de castidad) that
refers to ‘a garment or device designed to prevent the woman wearing it from
having sexual intercourse’ (COED). Some dictionaries are more explicit as to the
nature of this device: ‘a device that some women were forced to wear in the
past to prevent them from having sex. It had a part that went between the woman’s
legs and a lock so that it could not be removed’ (CALD).
4.3.3. Eng. caste and Sp. casta
It has been argued that English has also borrowed a noun derived
from the Latin adjective căstus,
namely caste [ˈkʰæst]
(UK [ˈkʰɑst]), earlier spelled cast, first attested in English in the
mid-16th century (the plural is castes,
pronounced [ˈkʰæsts]). Without a doubt, this
word came into English from Spanish and/or Portuguese casta ‘lineage, breed, race, bloodline, caste’.
Some think that this noun is a nominalization of the feminine
form of the adjective casta that we just
saw, perhaps through the reduction of an earlier phrase that meant something like
‘pure race’ or ‘cut-off group’. Others, however, such as DCECH, think that this
cannot be the source of this word (‘inverosímil en alto grado’, DCECH). However,
DCECH cannot provide a convincing alternative theory as to the source of the Spanish
noun casta, speculating that perhaps it
comes from an unattested Gothic word.
This word is native only to the Iberian Romance
languages (Galician-Portuguese, Spanish, and Catalan), though it has been borrowed
by others from either Spanish or Portuguese, including English, French, Italian,
German, and Russian to refer to Indian castes.
In English, the word caste
is mostly associated with ‘each of the hereditary classes of Hindu society,
distinguished by relative degrees of ritual purity or pollution and of social
status’ (COED). This is the only non-technical sense the word has according to this
dictionary, for instance (the other, technical term is used in Entomology: ‘(in
some social insects) a physically distinct kind of individual with a particular
function’). Other dictionaries, however, provide other senses derived from this
one, such as ‘a group of people who have the same position in society’ (LDOCE).
The Spanish noun casta,
on the other hand, is first attested in the early 15th century without any connection
to the castes of India or social groupings. The word can now be used to refer
to Indian castes as well as to social groups, but its original meaning had to
do with lineage or descent (Sp. ascendencia,
linaje) or (animal) breed (Sp. raza, pedigrí). A derived sense is ‘(good) quality’, as in de casta ‘thoroughbred, purebred’ or de buena casta ‘of good quality’.
Spanish has an adjective related to this noun casta. From a Vulgar Latin word derived
from Lat. castus, namely the unattested
*casticĕus,
supposedly comes the patrimonial Spanish adjective castizo/a ‘pure, authentic, traditional’. The DLE gives as the first
sense of this word ‘of good origin and caste’ (‘de buen origen y casta’). The
existence of this obviously patrimonial word would certainly seem to reinforce
the claim that the noun casta is
patrimonial in Spanish and related to the Latin adjective castus/a, a theory that was rejected by the DCECH, as we have seen.
The second sense of castizo is
‘typical, pure, genuine of any country, region or place (‘típico, puro, genuino
de cualquier país, región o localidad’). A third sense comes from this word’s
use to refer to a language, and then it means ‘pure, with no contamination from
other languages or strange expressions’ (‘dicho del lenguaje: Puro y sin mezcla
de voces ni giros extraños’).
The suffix ‑izo/a in
the word castizo/a is a patrimonial
one that descends from the Latin suffix ‑ĭtĭ-us/a that
produced adjectives that meant ‘of, pertaining to, or like’ the thing indicated
by the stem. There is a semi-learned version of this suffix, namely ‑icio/a. Some adjectives containing this suffix
are rojizo/a ‘redish’, enfermizo/a ‘sickly’, and huidizo/a ‘evasive, shy’. (There are
also some nouns with this suffix, such as caballeriza
‘stable’, pasadizo ‘passageway’, cobertizo ‘shed, shack’, and porqueriza ‘pigsty’.) The English equivalent
is ‑itious [ˈɪʃəs], though to suffix is
contained the additional ending ‑ous that
descends from yet another Latin suffix that produced adjectives, namely ‑ōs‑(us/a)
(cf. Sp. ‑os-o/a) and thus, is
really descended from Lat. ‑ĭtĭ-ōs‑us/a.
The most common word containing this word is probably Eng. fictitious ~ Sp. ficticio/a.
4.3.4. Lat. incestus
Finally, Lat. incestus
is the antonym of Lat. castus, a word
used primarily in Cicero, we are told. It is derived with the negative prefix in‑ and the word castus. This prefixation resulted in a change in the root vowel from
a to e, a type of metaphony (cf. Part I, Chapter 8,
§8.3.3.1),
cf. in+cast+us Ž
incestus. This word meant ‘unclean,
impure, polluted’ as well as ‘unchaste, lewd, incestuous, lustful’ (fem incesta, neut. incestum). From the neuter form of this adjective, Latin derived
the noun incestum ‘impious
unchastity, incest’ (L&S) which refers in particular to ‘sex between close
relatives’.
English borrowed the noun incest [ˈɪn.sɛst] from that Latin noun we just saw in the 13th
century, perhaps through French inceste
[ɛ̃ˈsɛst], which borrowed
the word from Latin at the end of the 13th century. The Spanish cognate incesto, pronounced [in.ˈθes.t̪o] or [in.ˈses.t̪o], is attested in Spanish since at least 1499, according
to DCECH.
Both languages have adjectives derived from the respective
nouns: Sp. incestuoso/a and Eng. incestuous [ɪnˈsɛstʃuəs]. Both words have a meaning that can be defined as
‘involving sexual activity between people who are closely related in a family’
(LDOCE). Additionally, Eng. incestuous
has developed a derived secondary meaning, namely ‘involving a small group of
people who only spend time with or help each other, not people outside the
group – used to show disapproval’ (LDOCE). Sp. incestuoso/a does not have this secondary meaning, which translates
into Spanish as endogámico/a or cerrado/a, depending on the context.
4.4.
Lat. căssus
Lat. căssus is a first-second-declension adjective that meant ‘empty, void, hollow’ and, figuratively, ‘vain, empty, useless, futile, fruitless’ (L&S). There is little doubt that this adjective is derived from the verb cărēre, but it is not clear how exactly it was derived. In particular, it is not transparent what the exact derivational suffix is. At face value, this Classical Latin word seems to contain a suffix ‑s‑(us/a/um) (căr-s-us or căs-s-us), but it is possible that this suffix is a reduction of an earlier, more substantial suffix. It has been speculated that căssus comes from an unattested earlier *carassus, but this does not seem likely.[h] Another theory is that it is a variant of the ancient passive participle căstus of the verb cărēre (see above), in which the ‑t‑ was changed to ‑s‑ by analogy with other passive participles in which this change took place (cf. de Vaan 2008:92).
This word has no descendants in English or Modern Spanish.
However, the adjective caso meaning
‘null, void’ is found in some Old Spanish legal writings (c. 1300), no doubt
borrowed from Latin (Memorias de don
Fernando IV de Castilla). The word has been replaced in Spanish by the
adjective nulo ‘null (and void)’ or
by the adjective anulado ‘annuled,
voided, etc.’, derived by conversion from the past participle of the verb anular ‘to annul, repeal, quash, etc.’.
From the adjective căssus ‘empty, void, etc.’, the verb căssare ‘to nullify,
(make) void’, as well as ‘bring to naught, destroy’. The verb was
derived in Late Latin times and it is
attested in very few places (3rd-5th centuries). The verb’s principal
parts were cassō, cassāre, cassavi, cassātus.
căs
|
us
|
‘empty, void, etc.’
|
|
Ž
|
căs
|
āre
|
‘to “nullify, (make) void’
|
Lat. căssare
gave us Old French casser or quasser meaning ‘to annul’. This Old
French verb was borrowed into English as quash
in the 14th century (Middle English quassen),
meaning ‘to nullify especially by judicial action’, as in quash an indictment (Merriam Webster’s Dictionary). The Modern Spanish
equivalents are anular and invalidar.
This verb quash
should not be confused with the other English verb to quash that means ‘to suppress or extinguish summarily and
completely’, as in quash a rebellion (MWD),
which translates into Spanish as sofocar,
aplastar. This verb was borrowed also
in the 13th century from Anglo-French quasser
or casser which was derived from Lat.
quassare ‘to shake violently, shatter’,
frequentative of quatĕre
‘to shake’ (MWD).[i]
The two verbs have merged in Modern French as casser, a verb that still means ‘to break’, as well as ‘to annul’,
among other things.
Late Lat. căssare also
turns up in other Romance languages as a very rare learned legal term.
Portuguese has cassar ‘to revoke,
cancel, invalidate’ and, in legal terminology, ‘to quash’. Italian too has a
verb cassare that means ‘to delete,
to cross out, to overturn, to rescind, to reverse’. Spanish has casar ‘to annul, quash’, which is a
quite rare and only found in legal terminology. This is quite likely due to the
fact that there is a very common and much older homonym of this verb that means
‘to marry’, which is totally unrelated and which is derived from the noun casa ‘house, home’, which comes from
Lat. căsa ‘hut,
cottage, etc.’, which contains a root căs‑
that is unrelated to the root căs‑
that we are dealing with.
Spanish borrowed the Late Latin verb cassar at one point as cassar.
This learned verb meaning ‘to annul, quash’ is already present in Nebrija’s
1492 dictionary. The verb still figures in some Modern Spanish dictionaries,
spelled casar. (In Old Spanish 〈ss〉 between vowels represented the
sound [s], whereas the single letter 〈s〉 was pronounced [z]. When these two
sounds merged a few centuries ago into [s], the spelling 〈ss〉 was replaced with
〈s〉 from all Spanish words.) As we said, this verb is still found in some
Modern Spanish dictionaries, such as the DLE, although the word is all but
obsolete, having been replaced by anular
and invalidar, as we saw earlier. The
DLE does not indicate that this verb casar
(cassar2) is either an archaic, obsolete, or even technical term.
Derived from this verb is the also very technical legal derived
term casación in Modern Spanish
meaning ‘annulment, cassation’. Note that this derived noun has also made it into
English, as cassation, although there
it is also a rare legal term. It means ‘abrogation or annulment by a higher
authority’ (AHD).
Finally, English borrowed yet once more the verb căssare, this time through Dutch, not in
the late 16th century. The Dutch verb is casseren
or kasseren, which (the Flemish dialect
of) Dutch borrowed from Old French and which meant ‘disband troops’ or ‘revoke
a will’ (COED). It came into English as cashier,
homonymous with the noun cashier of a
very different source. This verb cashier
is now quite rare and unknown to most speakers of English. One dictionary tells
us that it means ‘to dismiss from a position of command or responsibility,
especially for disciplinary reasons’ (AHD). Another defines it as ‘dismiss from
the armed forces because of a serious misdemeanor’ (COED).
4.5.
Lat. căstrāre
Lat. căstrāre is a first conjugation verb whose main meaning has been defined as ‘to deprive of generative power (both of male and female), to emasculate, castrate, geld’ but also, in some contexts, ‘to shorten, cut off, curtail’ and ‘prune’. This word is presumably derived from a Proto-Indo-European instrumental noun derived from the variant *kas‑ of the root *ḱes‑ plus an instrumental suffix thought to have been *‑tr‑ or *‑tro‑ in Proto-Indo-European plus, finally, the inflexion ‑om, resulting in the Proto-Indo-European word *ḱastrom that meant something like ‘cutting tool’. The Latin verb căstrāre would have been derived from the instrumental noun. Nonetheless, Latin does seem to have a descendant of the Proto-Indo-European noun *ḱastrom, namely the noun castrum, which had quite a different meaning, as we will see in the next section.
Sp. castrar is first attested in the
mid-13th century but it is not certain that it is a patrimonial word. The
alternative synonym is capar, which
is the primary word used for castrating animals and which is definitely a
patrimonial word.[j]
Spanish castrar is also used in
agriculture as a synonym of podar ‘to
prune’ to refer to the cutting of tree branches to speed up a tree’s development.
This is not surprising since Lat. căstrāre
already had that meaning. The verb castrar
is also used to refer to the removal of some honeycombs (Sp. panal de miel) from a beehive to speed
up the creation of more honey.
Spanish
has derived the noun castra from the
verb castrar to refer to the act of castrar as well as to the time of the
year in which castrating usually takes place: la castra. The noun that refers to the act of castrating in Spanish
is castración, a loanword from Lat. căstrātĭo (acc. căstrātĭōnem),
formed from the stem căstrāt‑
of the passive participle căstrātus
of the verb căstrāre by
means of the suffix ‑ĭōn‑ that derived action
nouns.
English, of course, also has a cognate verb castrate and a cognate noun castration. The verb has been around
since the early 17th century and it would seem to have been borrowed from
written Latin, from the passive participle verb form castrātus of the verb căstrāre, with the sense ‘to remove the testicles
of; to geld, emasculate’ (OED). However, English had borrowed the noun castration (then spelled castracioun) from Latin two centuries
earlier, in the early 15th century. Thus, although the verb castrate could be a loan from Lat. castrātus, it could also be
seen as a back-formation of the noun castration.
Or it could be a combination of both things.
4.6.
Lat. căstrum
Lat. căstrum is a second declension neuter noun meaning ‘any fortified place; a castle, fort, fortress’ and, mostly when used in the plural, căstra, ‘(fortified) military camp’. This word is now thought to derive from the same PIE root *ḱes‑ as all the other words we have seen in this section and, actually, from the same stem that Lat. căstrāre comes from (see preceding section). The semantic connection between the ‘cutting’ sense of the root and the ‘fort’ sense of the Latin word is not totally clear but it could be that a camp was separate or cut off from the (dangerous world) outside, typically also surrounded by cut out trenches.
English borrowed the word castrum for ‘a Roman encampment or fortress’ in the 19th century
(OED). Spanish now too has the word castro
for a fort or fortified settlement, not necessarily a Roman one, as in Visitaron un castro celta ‘They visited
a Celtic settlement’ (Larousse). But this is fairly recent use of the word, whose
use started in the field of archeology. In Hispania, a descendant of the Latin noun
căstrum was only in common use
in the Galicia region and, hence, also in Portugal. In the rest of the peninsula
it remained only in place names. Note that Castro
is also a common last name in Spanish, cf. Fidel
Castro, whose family and name came from the Galicia region.
It used to be thought that Lat. căstrum was related to Lat. căsa ‘any simple or poorly-built house, a cottage, hut,
cabin, shed’ (L&S), the source of Sp. casa
‘house, home’. Nowadays, we think that Lat. căstrum
actually descends from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱes‑ and that Lat. căsa comes from a different
PIE root, perhaps a nominal root *ket‑
meaning ‘hut, shed’.
The Spanish adjective castrense
is a learned loanword from Lat. căstrēnsis
‘of or pertaining to the camp’, derived from căstrum. It is used to refer to military things, as in the phrase disciplina castrense ‘military
discipline’. The Latin 3rd declension adjective căstrēnsis is derived from the
noun căstrum by
means of the suffix -ēns‑is (neuter ‑ēns‑e) ‘pertaining to, originating in’,
which is used in Modern Latin derivations primarily to form place names, e.g.
Sp. canadiense ‘Canadian’ and estadounidense ‘American (from the United
States)’.
Many towns in Western Europe started as Roman military
forts, which explains the appearance of this Latin word, in particular the
plural castra, in many place names, such
as Castro-Urdiales in Cantabria, Castrojeriz in Castile, and Castroverde in Galicia.
The ending chester or caster in English place names such as
Manchester or Lancaster comes from Latin castra
which was adapted as early Old English *cæstra
(5–6th centuries, unattested), resulting in Old English ceaster (< *ceæster
< *cæster) (OED). In southern
England, the initial consonant was palatalized before the front vowel æ, resulting in chester (e.g. Manchester),
but in northern England, the initial consonant was not palatalized,
resulting in caster (e.g. Lancaster). The word chester is now obsolete in English and
it is only found as part of place names. In a few place names, the word chester is spelled cester, as in Worcester,
pronounced [ˈwʊs.təɹ],
the name of a city in Worcestershire, England, and, named after it, a city in the
American state of Massachusetts.
The Latin diminutive of the noun castrum was the irregular căstellum
[kas.ˈt̪ɛl.lʲʊ̃], which meant ‘a castle, fort, citadel, fortress,
stronghold’ (L&S). Actually, the diminutive căstellum was more common in Latin than the non-diminutive
căstrum from which it was derived.[k]
This word has given us the cognates Eng. castle
[ˈkʰæsəɫ] or [ˈkʰɑsəɫ] ~ Sp. castillo
[kas.ˈt̪i.ʎo], which refer primarily to a somewhat different kind of
construction common during the Middle Ages.
Figure 234: Bodiam Castle (1385) in East
Sussex, England, surrounded by a water-filled moat[4]
Eng. castle came
from Old North French castel. The
cognate word in Old Parisian French was chastel,
which has turned into Modern French château
[ʃɑˈto]. The sound
change from Lat. c [k] to Old Parisian
French ch [ʧ], pronounced [ʃ]
in Modern French, is characteristic of the Parisian dialect of French from
which Modern Standard French derives. English borrowed the word château [ʃæˈtʰoʊ̯]
in the mid-18th century for ‘a castle or a large house especially in France’
(MWALD)
Sp. alcázar is
another word for ‘castle’ in this language, used to refer to fortresses in
Moorish Spain. This word comes from Arabic اَلْقَصْر (al-qaṣr) ‘the castle’, the
second part of which, after the Arabic definite article al, comes from Latin castrum
‘castle’. In other words, Sp. castillo
and Sp. alcazar are cognate words
(though not full cognates, cf. Part I, Chapter 1).
The cognate of this word in Galician and Portuguese is alcácer. In Aragon, Spain, there is a beautiful town called Alquézar, another cognate of this word. The
word alcazar has also been used in
English since the early 17th century for ‘a Spanish palace or fortress of Moorish
origin’ (COED). It is usually pronounced [ˌælkəˈzɑɹ], with final stress (and
ante-penultimate secondary stress), but also [ælˈkʰɑzəɹ],
with penultimate stress, as in Spanish and Arabic.
4.7.
Lat cărĭēs
Lat. cărĭēs is a fifth declension noun meaning ‘rot, rottenness, corruption’. It is derived from the root căr‑ and the rare suffix ‑ĭēs, which derived fifth declension abstract nouns, usually from adjective stems.[l]
Spanish has borrowed this word as caries ‘(tooth) cavity’ [ˈka.ɾi̯es] and it is the common word for this meaning. This word
first appeared in a dictionary in 1786 and it first appeared in the Academy’s
dictionary (DRAE) in 1803. The word caries
is both singular and plural. In other words, the singular is caries and, as is
the case with paroxytonic words (palabras
graves/llanas) that end in ‑s in
the singular, it does not change in the plural (e.g. lunes, lavaplatos). In
medicine, the word caries refers more
generally to the localized destruction of hard tissues, such as teeth and bones
(DLE).
English also borrowed this Latin word in the 16th century,
as caries [ˈkɛɹ.iz]
also to refer to the ‘decay and crumbling of a tooth or bone’ (COED), cf. dental caries (Sp. caries dentaria). In English, however, unlike in Spanish, the word cavity is more common to refer to tooth
decay, whereas in Spanish the word caries
is the only option.
4.8.
Lat. căstĭgāre
The Latin verb căstīgāre was derived from the adjective căstus that we just saw. This was a polysemous word whose main meaning was ‘to set right by word or deed, to correct’, but which could mean ‘to chastise’, ‘to punish’, and ‘to blame, reprove, chide, censure, find fault with’, among other meanings (L&S). Actually, this verb was a compound of the adjective căstus and the verb ăgĕre ‘to act, make, etc.’ (ăg‑ĕre). In the word căstīgāre (căst‑īg‑ā‑re) we can detect the root căst‑, unchanged, and the variant (allomorph) ‑īg‑ of the root ăg‑ (remember that root vowel changes were common in Latin when the root was not the first morpheme in the word and, thus, was unstressed in early Latin, cf. Part I, Chapter 8, §8.3.3.1). Both English and Spanish have this Latin verb, Sp. castigar ~ Eng. castigate, but they are hardly good friends since their meanings are quite different, though they are both easily relatable to the original meaning(s).
The Spanish word castigar
might seem to be a loanword, since it looks so much like its Latin source word,
but this word is actually attested in one of the earliest Spanish writings, the
glosses of San Millán from the middle of the 10th century (cf. Part I, Chapter 9,
§9.5).
During most of the Middle Ages, this word had the ‘reprimand’ and ‘correct’
meanings of the Latin word, but occasionally the verb was also used in Spanish
with the ‘punish’ sense. This ‘punish’ sense is the main and basically only one
that the word has today. Spanish dictionaries often provide additional meanings
for castigar, but these are quite rare
and archaic, if not obsolete. One additional sense that this word has and which
is not so rare is one that is obviously derived from the ‘punish’ sense and which
can be described as ‘to make someone or something suffer (but not as
punishment)’, as in these two sample sentences: Los consumidores son castigados con esta nueva subida de precios ‘Consumers
suffer this new price increase’ and El
granizo castigó los sembrados ‘The hail damaged/ruined the sown fields’ (Clave).[m]
Two other rare meanings are ‘to ride hard’ (a horse) and ‘to seduce’ (a woman).
Eng. castigate [ˈkʰæstɪɡeɪ̯t] is an early 17th century
loanword from Lat. căstīgāre,
actually from its passive participle căstīgātus.
Most dictionaries give as the only meaning of this word ‘to criticize (someone)
harshly’ (MWALD) but a few include the idea of punishment in their definitions
of this English word, such as ‘to criticize or
punish someone severely’ (LDOCE). Eng. castigate
is obviously a fancy word, unlike its Spanish cognate castigar, which is a word that has come to fully replace the earlier
patrimonial word that meant ‘to punish’, namely punir, which was a cognate of Eng. punish. The word punir is
now obsolete in Spanish, though some dictionaries still carry it. When they do,
they tell us that it is a (fancy) synonym of castigar borrowed from Latin, though Old Spanish had this word and it
was a patrimonial one.
Old Sp. punir and
Eng. punish [ˈpʰʌnɪʃ] come ultimately from
Lat. pūnīre ‘to punish’ and ‘to take
vengeance, avenge’. In early Latin, the word was poenīre, which reveals that this verb is derived from the noun poena ‘punishment, penalty’, also pēna later on, a loanword from Ancient Greek
ποινή (poinḗ) ‘penalty,
fine, bloodmoney’. This noun is, of course, the source of the cognate false-friend
nouns Sp. pena and Eng. pain (and possible of the English verb to pine as well). Eng. punish is an early 14th century loanword
from Old French puniss‑, which was the
extended present participle stem of the verb punir ‘to punish’. The related noun Eng. punishment is a late 14th century loanword from Old French punissement, from the same stem and the noun-forming
suffix ‑ment.
Spanish has derived a noun from the verb castigar, namely castigo ‘punishment’. The English noun related to the verb castigate is castigation [ˌkʰæstəˈɡeɪ̯ʃən] ‘the act or result of
castigating’, which is a loanword from Latin. Actually, the noun castigation is attested in English more
than 200 years before the verb castigate,
in the late 14th century. The Spanish equivalents of this English noun would be
censura, crítica, or reprobación.
[a] The verb
granjear means ‘to capture, attract,
obtain’ (‘Captar, atraer, conseguir’, DLE), as in Se granjeó la confianza de su suegro ‘He obtained his
father-in-law’s trust’ or Sus méritos le
granjearon un puesto en el ministerio ‘His merits won him a position at the
ministry’ (DLE). The verb granjear is derived from the noun granja that today means ‘farm’, a
loanword from French grange ‘granary,
barn’. This loanword is attested quite early (1190) and it seems to have been
brought by Cistercian monks. As the DLE mentions, the original (now obsolete)
senses of the derived verb granjear
were ‘to carefully cultivate a land and estate, caring for the conservation and
increase of livestock’ and ‘to make a profit trading cattle or other tradeable
objects’.
[b] As we
can see, although the noun and the verb care
are homonyms in Modern English, originally they were different albeit related
words, with the verb being derived from the noun by means of a derivational
suffix, which has since worn out (cf. Part I, Chapter 4,
§4.5.2,
for a similar case involving the noun and verb lie).
From the present participle of the verb to care, English has derived quite
recently the adjective caring [ˈkʰeɹ.ɪŋ] by conversion, which means something like ‘feeling
and exhibiting concern and empathy for others’ (AHD), as in He’s a very caring person or caring parents (OALD). Although the
action noun caring is attested in the
mid-16th century (‘the act of caring’), the adjective caring dates back only to
the second half of the 20th century.
[c] The root
of the words care was originally a
nominal one, which has been reconstructed as Proto-Germanic *karō ‘care, sorrow, cry’, descendant of
the Proto-Indo-European root *ǵeh₂r‑ ‘shout,
call’. It is cognate with Middle High German kar ‘sorrow, lamentation’, Gothic 𐌺𐌰𐍂𐌰
(kara) ‘concern, care’, and Icelandic kör
‘sickbed’, and related to Dutch karig
‘scanty’ and German karg ‘sparse,
meagre, barren’. Outside the Germanic languages, the word care is said to be related to the Latin verb garrīre ‘to chatter, prate, chat, talk’, source of the rare Spanish
verb garrir, which nowadays can only
refer to the act of screaming of a parrot, though earlier it also had the
meaning ‘to chat’ (= charlar).
[d] The noun
caricia ‘caress’, first attested in
the mid-16th century, seems to be a loanword from Italian carezza or, actually, from a variant of this word from southern
Italy, which is derived from the adjective caro
‘dear’ that we just saw.
[e] The verb
rapiñar descends from V.Lat. rapinare ‘to rob’, derived from the
Latin noun răpīna
‘robbery, plundering, pillage’, itself derived from the Latin verb răpĕre ‘to
seize and carry off, to snatch’, from whose root răp‑
come the English words rapacious, rapture, raptor, ravage, ravenous, ravine, ravish, and,
possibly, rape. The verb escudriñar comes from V.Lat. scrutiniare, derived from the Latin noun
scrūtinĭum ‘search,
inquiry, investigation’ derived from the verb scrūtārī ‘to search, examine thoroughly’, from the plural noun scrūta ‘old or broken stuff, trash’.
[f] For more
information, see Etymological Dictionary
of Latin and the Other Italic Languages (Leiden Indo-European Etymological
Dictionary) by Michiel de Vaan, 2008.
[g] The
alternation ‑s‑/‑r‑ can be seen in
many common Latin words. For instance, the word for ‘flower’ was flos (with an s) in the nominative case, but florem
in the accusative (with an r). Sp. flor and Eng. flower come from the accusative form of this Latin word (English
borrowed from the Old French patrimonial word flour, flur, or flor (Modern French fleur). The alternation can even be witnessed in modern words that
descend from Latin words, such as just,
from Lat. iūs-t-us (cf.
Sp. justo/a), and jury, ultimately from Med. Lat. jūr‑āt‑a (cf. Sp. jurar ‘to swear’, jurado
‘jury’).
[h] There
has been further speculation on the Internet that this unattested Latin word *carassus is the source of vulgar and
colloquial Sp. carajo ‘penis, dick,
cock, prick’, a word used in a number of common expressions (and its cognates
Gal. carallo, Port. caralho, and Cat. carall). This theory is unsubstantiated, however, and the sound
changes do not make sense. Another suggested source of Sp. carajo is the unattested Vulgar Latin diminutive *c(h)araculum, though it is not clear what
this word would have been a diminutive of, perhaps of Ancient Greek χάραξ (khárax) ‘stick’.
Note that Lat. căssus
should not be confused with the noun cāsus
‘fall, accident,
etc.’, source of Eng. case ~ Sp. caso, with their several meanings. These
cognates are derived by conversion from cāsus ‘fallen’,
passive participle of the verb cādĕre
‘to fall’. Actually, this classical cāsus
was in earlier Latin
cāssus, which resulted from an original cād-t-us, with ‑t‑ being the regular passive participle morpheme, which when added
to a stem ending in ‑d resulted in ‑ss or ‑s (cf. Part I, Chapter 8, §8.4.3.3.3.2).
[i] From
Lat. quassare, Vulgar Latin formed exquassare by the addition of the prefix
ex‑ ‘out’. This is the source of Eng.
squash meaning ‘to crush’, which also
entered the language in the 13th century. The homonymous noun squash, meaning the vegetable, noun
comes from the American Indian language Algonquian’s word askutasquash. A verb derived from Lat. quatĕre by prefixation is discutĕre, which has given us the false friends Eng. discuss ~ Sp. discutir ‘to argue’.
[j] Sp. capar comes from Vulgar Latin cappare, derived from V. Lat. cappo capponis, from Lat. cāpo
cāponis ‘capon’, that is, ‘a
male chicken that has had part of its sex organs removed to improve the taste
of its flesh for food’ (CALD) (Sp. capón;
note the expressive doubling of the consonant in the Vulgar Latin form)
[k] We say that
castellum is irregular because the root cast‑ is different from that of the base
word castrum, which is castr‑. Also, the diminutive suffix ‑ell‑(um)
was not the most common diminutive suffix in Latin. The most common diminutive suffix
was ‑ul‑ for first and second declension
nouns, and ‑(i‑)cul‑ for third, fourth
or fifth declension nouns. Examples with ‑ul‑:
formula ‘little form/shape’, from forma ‘form/shape’, and modulus ‘a small measure’ from modus ‘measure; manner’, circulus ‘little circus’ from circus ‘circus, race-course’. Examples with
‑(i‑)cul‑: musculus ‘a little mouse’ from mus
‘mouse’, particula ‘little part’ from
pars – partis ‘part’.
The Latin diminutive endings come from Proto-Italic ‑ol‑, from an earlier ‑el‑, from Proto-Indo-European *‑e‑l‑.
Less common diminutive endings were primarily ‑ol‑ and ‑ell‑ (and occasionall ‑ill‑
and ‑oll‑) whose distribution is a bit
more complicated. Basically, the ‑ol‑
allomorph was used when the base ended in ‑e‑,
‑i‑ or ‑u‑, and the ‑ell‑ (and ‑ill‑ and ‑oll‑) allomorph was used primarily with ‑r‑ stems (stems that ended in ‑r),
e.g. liber ‘book’ > libellus ‘little book’, cerebrum ‘brain’ > cerebellum ‘little brain’ and castrum > castellum.
[l] Note
that there is also another Latin suffix ‑ĭēs which is a variant of
the suffix ‑ĭēns that formed third declension present participles.
[m] María
Moliner defines these senses as ‘hacer padecer física o moralmente a alguien
aunque no sea por faltas cometidas’ and (2) ‘Estropear una ↘cosa un fenómeno
natural: ‘Las heladas han castigado mucho los frutales. El viento castiga las
empalizadas’. ≃ Dañar,
perjudicar’.
[1] Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Filha_d%C3%A1_um_beijo_no_rosto_do_pai.jpg,
www.amudhahariharan.com [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]
[3] According to the DCECH, Leo
Spitzer first published this theory about the source of cariño in Lexikalisches aus
dem Katalanischen und den übrigen iberoromanischen Sprachen, Geneva, 1921,
p. 40.
[4] Source: Description:
Bodiam Castle East Sussex England UK; Date: 10 May 2008; Author: Antony McCallum;
URL: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Bodiam-castle-10My8-1197.jpg
(2019.11.29)
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