llançar

Forms

llançar (first-person singular present llanço, first-person singular preterite llancí, past participle llançat)^[1] Old Catalan wrote lançar and lansar.^[1][2] The DCVB heads the word llançar o llençar and records the pronunciations [ʎənsá], [ʎansá] and [ʎansáɾ].^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Catalan lançar, which is inherited from Late Latin lanceō (“to wield a lance”), formed from lancea (“lance”).^[4][3][1] The GDLC derives it within Catalan from the noun llança.^[5]

The same Late Latin verb is French lancer, Italian lanciare, Occitan lançar, Portuguese lançar and Spanish lanzar.^[1] Coromines notes that the verb is common to all the Western Romance languages, but that in Catalan, unlike Spanish, it has had a general sense from the beginning: it lost its link with the lance and became an intensive synonym of gitar and tirar.^[4] In Spanish the verb still meant “to throw a lance” in the third quarter of the 13th century.^[6]

Varro took the Latin noun to be Spanish; modern dictionaries consider it Celtic or Celtiberian.^[7][1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Coromines and the DCVB take the first record from Ramon Llull, who already uses the verb in its general sense: la péra que hom lansa per l'àer, “the stone that one throws through the air”.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval texts the verb means to throw something forcefully from the hand (Antoni Canals, 1395), to remove or drive away (Curial e Güelfa, 1440), to expel, to fire guns (Tirant lo Blanc, 1460), and in a medical text of 1466 to vomit.^[2] Coromines often finds it with the sense of throwing something away to be rid of it.^[4] The sense “to vomit” survives in Valencian, as do the phrases llançar a perdre “to spoil, ruin” recorded by Escrig and Martí Gadea.^[9][10] Pal·las records the legal sense, to evict someone from a property by court order.^[11]

Because the scornful sense was frequent in the stressed forms (llença), speakers came to prefer llençar for “to throw away, get rid of” and llançar for “to throw with force”, and Fabra's dictionary separated the two verbs.^[4]

Timeline

• 13th century – Ramon Llull uses lansa for throwing a stone through the air.^[4][3]
• 1395 – Antoni Canals's translation of Valerius Maximus: lança l'aur, he throws down the gold.^[2]
• 1440 – Curial e Güelfa uses it for removing someone from a duke's favour.^[2]
• 1460 – Tirant lo Blanc has guns fired (lançant bombardes); Jaume Roig uses it in the Spill.^[2]
• 1466 – the Receptari of Micer Johan uses it for vomiting.^[2]
• 1851 – Escrig's Valencian dictionary records the sense “to vomit”.^[9]
• 1932 – Fabra's dictionary defines it as letting something go with a strong push so that it travels through the air.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To throw or hurl: to let something go with force so that it travels through the air.^[13][5][1]
2. (by extension) To give off or utter: of a star, to send out rays; of a person, to cast a glance or let out a cry.^[13]
3. To send off quickly in a given direction; to launch (a ship, a project, a satèl·lit).^[13][5][1]
4. (pronominal) To throw oneself, to rush at something or someone.^[13][3]
5. (law) To evict: of an authority, to remove someone by force from a property.^[13][11]
6. (Valencia) To vomit.^[9][10][3]

Word family

• llançador
• llançament
• llançaflames
• llançagranades
• llançamíssils

Related words

• llança
• llençar
• Latin lancea
• Spanish lanzar
• French lancer

Usage notes

The old language did not distinguish llançar from llençar.^[4] In the norm since Fabra llançar is to throw with force and llençar is to throw away; the DCVB still heads the two together.^[4][3] The DEIEC gives llençar as a synonym in some senses.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. llançar
3. ^ a b c d e f g Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. llançar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. 5, 63
5. ^ a b c Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. llançar
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lanza
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. lancea
8. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. lanza
9. ^ a b c Escrig, José (1851), Diccionario valenciano-castellano, Valencia, p. s.v. llançar
10. ^ a b Martí Gadea, Joaquim (1891), Novísimo diccionario general valenciano-castellano, Valencia, p. s.v. llançar
11. ^ a b Vallès, Emili (1927), Pal·las: diccionari català il·lustrat, Barcelona: Salvat, p. s.v. llançar
12. ^ Fabra, Pompeu (1932), Diccionari general de la llengua catalana, Barcelona: Llibreria Catalònia, p. s.v. llançar
13. ^ a b c d e 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. llançar
14. ^ Institut d'Estudis Catalans, Diccionari essencial de la llengua catalana (DEIEC), online, https://deiec.iec.cat, p. s.v. llançar