abrigo

Forms

abrigo m (plural abrigos)^[1] Old Spanish also has abrygo, and the Poema de Alfonso XI has abriego and albrigo;^[1] abligo is Judeo-Spanish of Morocco, and abrío appears in 16th-century pastoral texts.^[2]

Etymology

It is a deverbal noun from Spanish abrigar (“to shelter, keep warm”).^[3][4][5] The verb comes from apricāre (“to warm in the sun”), from aprīcus (“sunny”); the sense “to shelter from the wind” is already found in the Latin of Palladius in the 4th century.^[3][4] Wiktionary also gives a second explanation, through a Late Latin *abrigāre (“to cover, shelter”) from *biwrīhan (“to cover, protect”).^[1]

Old Spanish also had an adjective of the same form meaning “sheltered”, used by Berceo and as late as 1566, which continues the Latin adjective itself; it was later replaced by abrigaño.^[3][2] The REW lists this Old Spanish adjective among the outcomes of the Latin word.^[6] The DLE still derives the sense “sheltered place” from Latin aprīcum (“a sunny place”).^[5] The same Latin word gave Portuguese abrigo and Catalan abric.^[7]

De Vaan notes that the Latin adjective is the opposite of opācus (“shady”), and cites Nussbaum's idea of a derivative meaning “open-looking”, from ap(o) (“away, off”);^[8][1][9] Wiktionary and the OLD connect it with aperiō (“to open”).^[8][1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun first appears in the Poema de Fernán González (c. 1250, in a copy of the second half of the 15th century), where King Roderick is called sombra e grand abrigo “shade and great protection” of the Christians.^[3][2][10] The Fuero de Viguera y Val de Funes of the same years uses abrigo for a sheltered place in the village, from which a leper is barred.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

Through the Middle Ages abrigo meant protection and help.^[2] From the 15th century it also meant a sheltered place, a refuge or lair.^[2] The Celestina (1499) asks where the old woman will find abrigo.^[2] Nebrija in 1495 gave it the sense of warmth, apricitas.^[2][12] Clothing that keeps one warm is recorded from 1519, and the coat itself, worn over other clothes, from Lope de Vega's Gatomaquia of 1634; the Academy defined the garment in 1832.^[2] The 1884 edition also added the nautical sense, a place on the coast where ships shelter from wind and waves.^[13]

The phrase al abrigo de “under the protection of” is in Cervantes (1605), but in the sense “safe from” it was long condemned as a Gallicism, by Baralt in 1855 among others.^[2][14] In archaeology abrigo is a shallow rock shelter, and in Mexico it names an overcoat where other countries say gabán.^[5][15]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – first record of the noun, in the Poema de Fernán González.^[3][2]
• c. 1255 – Berceo uses the old adjective abrigo “sheltered” in the Milagros de Nuestra Señora.^[2]
• 1499 – the Celestina uses it for “refuge, protection”.^[2]
• 1535 – first record in the Americas, at Santa Marta.^[16]
• 1605 – al abrigo de in the dedication of Don Quixote.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin apricus.^[17]
• 1634 – the sense “overcoat” in Lope de Vega's Gatomaquia.^[2]
• 1832 – the Academy defines the garment.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy adds the nautical sense.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. An overcoat: a long coat with sleeves, open in front, worn over other clothes in cold weather: Ponte el abrigo, que hiela.^[5][1]
2. Anything that protects from the cold: ropa de abrigo.^[5]
3. A shelter: a place protected from bad weather or any danger.^[5][1]
4. Protection, help, amparo.^[5]
5. The act of sheltering or keeping warm.^[5]
6. (archaeology) A shallow natural rock shelter.^[5]
7. (nautical) A haven on the coast where ships can shelter.^[18][1]

Word family

• desabrigo

Related words

• abrigar
• Portuguese abrigo

Usage notes

Al abrigo de means “under the protection of” and “safe from”;^[19] de abrigo is colloquial for “dangerous, to be wary of”.^[5][19] A separate older word, ábrigo or abrigo “the southwest wind” (now ábrego), comes from Latin africus; it is in Berceo and in the Academy's dictionaries as an old word.^[20][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. abrigo
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 21
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. abrigar
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. abrigo
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 615
8. ^ a b 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 Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. abrigo
11. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. abrigo
12. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. abrigo
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 6
14. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 46
15. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 25
16. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. abrigo
17. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 50
18. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. abrigo
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. abrigo
20. ^ Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 53