Words derived from Sp. quejar(se)
Sp. quejido
Another noun related to the verb quejar in Modern
Spanish is quejido ‘groan, moan, whine’, first attested at the end of
the 16th century. Old Spanish synonyms, now obsolete, were quexura, quexadura,
and, less common, quexamiento. The noun quejido is often used in
the expressions dar quejidos ‘to moan, groan’ and un quejido de dolor
‘a cry of pain’.
Actually, the form of the noun quejido is quite
interesting from an etymological perspective. It might seem to be a noun
derived from the passive participle of a verb, as many Spanish nouns are, but
since the verb is quejar and its passive participle quejado, this
cannot be the case, for ‑ido is the ending for second and third
conjugation participles in Spanish and the ending for first conjugation
participles is ‑ado (quej‑ar > quej‑ado). So, what is
the source of this ending or suffix-like element ‑ido (quej-ido)?
The answer seems to be that this noun was derived by analogy with other nouns that
describe sounds of different types that also have endings in ‑ido and which
are not derived from 2nd or 3rd conjugation participles either. The main ones
are the following:
·
chillido ‘shriek, scream, cry; (pig)
squeal; (mouse) squeak; (bird) screech’ (16th century), related to the verb chillar
‘to shriek, scream, etc.’ (15c.), perhaps from V.Lat. *cisclare < Late
Lat. fistulare < Lat. fistŭla ‘pipe, tube, (music) shepherd's pipe, pipes of Pan’
·
silbido ‘whistle’ (17c.), related to the
verb silbar ‘to whistle’ (14c.), from Lat. sībĭlāre ‘to hiss, to whistle’
·
berrido ‘(calf’s) bellow, bellowing;
(person’s) howl’, related to the verb berrear ‘to bellow; to bawl’, from
Lat. verrēs
‘a boar, male swine’
·
chirrido ‘screech; creak, creaking’ (15c.),
related to the verb chirriar ‘to squeak, creak; screech’ (15c.), presumably
an onomatopoeic verb
·
balido ‘bleating, bleat’ (14c.), related
to the verb balar ‘to bleat’ (13c.), from Lat. balāre
·
aullido ‘howl’ (13c.), related to the
verb aullar ‘to howl’, from an earlier *ullar, from Vulgar Lat. ūlŭlāre < Lat. ŭlŭlāre ‘to howl, yell, shriek, utter a
mournful cry’
·
maullido ‘meow’ (18c.), related to the
verb maullar ‘to meow’ (15c.), a dialectal variant of the verb maular,
by influence of aullar, also an onomatopoeic verb
·
graznido ‘(crow’s) caw; (goose’s) honk; (duck’s)
quack’ (15c), related to the verb graznar ‘to caw; to honk; to quack’,
from an earlier *gracĭnare, from Late Lat. gracitare/gracillare,
from Lat. grācŭlus ‘jackdaw’ (bird related to the crow)
·
zumbido ‘buzzing’ (15c), related to the
verb zumbar ‘to buzz; to hum, whirr’ (15c), another onomatopoeic verb
·
pitido ‘whistle (sound), whistling; beep,
hoot, honk’ (20c.), related to the verb pitar ‘to blow a whistle; to
hoot, honk’, from pito ‘whistle, car horn, etc.’, an onomatopoeic noun
It is not clear how these names of sounds came to be
derived by means of the ending (suffix?) ‑ido. Most of these words are
attested quite late, historically speaking. Perhaps the noun sonido ‘sound’,
attested in the 13th century, was the primary catalyst or source of the analogy.
This is a semi-learned descendant of the 4th declension noun Lat. sŏnĭtus ‘noise, sound, din’.
If this word had been patrimonial, it would have developed into *suendo.
In this word, the ‑t‑ changed to ‑d‑,
like in patrimonial words, but other expected sound changes did not take place
in this word, which is why we say it is a semi-learned word (Sp. semicultismo,
cf. Part I, Chapter 1). Note that the stress in this word shifted from the antepenultimate
syllable in the Latin word to the penultimate syllable in Spanish, something
that would have prevented the short ŏ
from diphthongizing to ue in a patrimonial word.
The Latin noun sŏnĭtus
was probably derived by conversion from the identical passive participle of
the first conjugation verb sŏnāre ‘to sound, resound,
make a noise’ (source of Sp. sonar ‘to sound; to ring; etc.’). The
reason that this participle was sŏnĭtus
and not sŏnātus seems to be due to
the fact that verb was earlier a third conjugation verb, sŏnĕre, whose passive
participle was rightfully sŏnĭtus. The more common word
for the meaning ‘noise, sound’ in Latin was sŏnus, the ultimate source of Eng. sound, from Old
French son ‘sound, musical note, voice’, and of Sp. son ‘musical
sound’, which is probably a loanword from Occitan, for if it was a patrimonial word
it would have been sueno, a word that is actually attested in the Middle
Ages (DCEH).
Another early sound-related noun ending in ‑ido which
has been said to influence the more recent nouns in ‑ido is tronido,
an old word for ‘thunder’ in Spanish (cf. the more common trueno in
Modern Spanish), descended from Vulgar Lat. trŏnītus,
from Lat. tŏnītrus ‘thunder’, related
to the verb tŏnāre (source of Sp. tronar
‘to thunder’, whose r is supposedly due to the influence of the related
noun tronido). From the feminine past participle of tronar,
namely tronada, Spanish created a noun that means ‘thunderstorm’. This
noun was borrowed into English in the 16th century, changing into the word tornado
which, incidentally, has been borrowed back by Spanish as tornado with
the new meaning it developed in English: ‘a mobile, destructive vortex of
violently rotating winds having the appearance of a funnel-shaped cloud’ (COED).
Finally, another early sound-related noun ending in ‑ido
which might have influenced the creation of the other nouns with this ending is
the word ruido ‘noise’, first attested as roido in Mio Cid (DCEH).
This noun descends from the fourth declension Latin noun rŭgītus that
meant ‘a roaring of lions’ and, by transference, ‘a rumbling in the
bowels’ (L&S). This noun was derived by conversion from the identical passive
participle of the verb rŭgīre ‘to roar’ (cf. learned
Sp. rugir ‘to roar’ and rugido ‘roar’). By the way, Sp. ruido
is a cognate of Eng. rut ‘an annual period of sexual activity in deer
and some other mammals, during which the males fight each other for access to
the females’ (COED).[1]
[1] This Eng. rut comes from Old French rut, from Latin *rūgitus. It is unrelated to the homonym rut that means ‘a sunken track or groove made by the passage of vehicles’ and ‘a fixed, usually boring routine’ (AHD), which probably comes from Old Fr. rute, also the source of Eng. route.
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