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ahir

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Etymology and origin of the Catalan word ahir

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1400s the sermons of Vincent Ferrer More words from the 14th century
Ultimate origin
Latin heri
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin herī
French hier
Italian ieri
Romanian ieri
Spanish ayer
Catalan ahir
From the same root
Latin hesternus ← herī

Pronunciation

  • Balearic, Central, Northern: [əˈi][1]
  • Valencia: [aˈiɾ][1]
  • Northwestern: [aˈi][1]

Forms

ahir[1] Old Catalan said hir or ir;[2] Vincent Ferrer's sermons have both hir and the new air.[3][4] A letter of 1472 spells hair.[2] Where the a- was added late, the final -r is still pronounced: in all of Roussillon and Upper Cerdanya, and in a zone of the Matarranya and the Valencian border.[3] The DCVB records [əíɾ], [əíɾə], [əíɾt], [əí], [aí] and [aíɾ], Wiktionary gives [əˈi] for Central, Balearic and Northern Catalan, [aˈi] for North-Western and [aˈiɾ] for Valencian.[5][1]

Etymology

It is formed from Old Catalan a- + hir (“yesterday”), with the a- that also appears in avui, així, ací, allí and aviat.[3][4][6][1] Coromines sees in it the emphasis speakers give to words of time and place.[3] The DCVB starts instead from a Vulgar Latin phrase ⟨ad heri⟩.[5]

The Old Catalan word is from Latin heri (“yesterday”).[3][4][1] Corominas explains its form, and that of Old Occitan ieir, by the -i passing into the syllable before, in phrases like ⟨heri ad noctem⟩.[7] In the same way Spanish ayer took the a- before old ⟨yer⟩.[7] Other descendants of the Latin adverb are Occitan ièr, French hier, Italian ieri and Romanian ieri.[1]

The Latin adverb goes back to *dʰǵʰyési, the locative of the Proto-Indo-European word for "yesterday", which is also behind Ancient Greek χθές (khthés).[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The plain hir is in 13th-century texts such as the Vides de sants rosselloneses and the Set savis.[3] The form with a- appears at the beginning of the 15th century, when one of Vincent Ferrer's sermons begins "as I preached to you yesterday" with air, while another has hir.[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Hir lived on through the Middle Ages: an ambassador's letter of 1315 and Roussillon documents of 1435 and 1457 still use it.[3] Ahir spread in the 15th century, roughly with avui replacing hui; in the Roussillon documents it appears only from 1592.[3] Ausiàs March and the Tirant lo Blanc use ahir.[9][10]

Besides the day before today, the word has long meant the recent past.[5][6] The Mallorcan dictionaries of the 19th century give phrases such as d’ahir a vuy, "from one day to the next", and Martí Gadea a proverb about someone who was a shepherd yesterday and is a lord today.[11][12]

Timeline

  • 13th century – ir in the Vides de sants rosselloneses.[3]
  • 1315 – hir in an ambassador's letter.[3]
  • Early 15th century – air and hir in Vincent Ferrer's sermons.[3][4]
  • 1425–1459 – ahir in the poems of Ausiàs March.[9]
  • 1460 – ahir in the Tirant lo Blanc.[10]
  • 1472 – hair in a letter of Lluís Cornell.[2]
  • 1592 – first ahir in the Roussillon documents.[3]
  • 1932 – Fabra's dictionary.[13]

Meanings

Adverb

  1. yesterday, on the day before today: Ahir a la tarda va nevar.[14][6]
  2. d’ahir ençà: since yesterday;[1] d’ahir en vuit: a week from yesterday.[14]
  3. A short time ago, recently: Aquesta moda és d’ahir.[14][6]

Noun

  1. The day before today; the past.[6][5]

Word family

  • abans-d'ahir
  • despús-ahir

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. ahir
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 1, 85
  4. ^ a b c d e Bruguera, Jordi (1996), Diccionari etimològic, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, p. 50
  5. ^ a b c d Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. ahir
  6. ^ a b c d e Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. ahir
  7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 427
  8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  9. ^ a b Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. ahir
  10. ^ a b Aguiló i Fuster, Marià (1914–1934), Diccionari Aguiló: materials lexicogràfics, ed. Pompeu Fabra and Manuel de Montoliu, 8 vols., Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. 1
  11. ^ Amengual, Juan José (1858), Nuevo diccionario mallorquín-castellano-latín, Palma de Mallorca, p. s.v. ahir
  12. ^ Martí Gadea, Joaquim (1891), Novísimo diccionario general valenciano-castellano, Valencia, p. s.v. ahir
  13. ^ Fabra, Pompeu (1932), Diccionari general de la llengua catalana, Barcelona: Llibreria Catalònia, p. s.v. ahir
  14. ^ a b c Institut d'Estudis Catalans (2007), Diccionari de la llengua catalana, 2nd ed. (DIEC2), Barcelona: Edicions 62; online edition with later updates, https://dlc.iec.cat, p. s.v. ahir

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Ahir.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/ca/ahir. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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