admirar

Forms

admirar (first-person singular present admiro, first-person singular preterite admiré, past participle admirado)^[1] Popular pronunciations include almirar, recorded from 1575 and still heard in Madrid, Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and Argentina, armirar and azmirar.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin admīrārī (“to wonder at, be astonished; to admire”), a learned word.^[3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed ad- + mīror (“to be amazed”).^[5][6] The simple verb is the source of the inherited mirar, which first meant “to wonder at” in Old Spanish, then “to contemplate” and finally “to look”.^[3]

mīrus (“remarkable, astonishing”), from which the simple verb is formed, goes back to Proto-Italic *smeiro- and Proto-Indo-European *sméi-ro- (“laughter”), and is related to smǣr (“lips”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEMel lists admirantes in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Crónica de los emperadores, of the second half of the 14th century.^[8] In Castilian the verb appears in Enrique de Villena's translation of the Aeneid (1427–1428, in a copy of 1442), of a place full of wonder.^[9] The historical dictionary's first example of the reflexive sense “to be astonished” is in Santillana's Comedieta de Ponza (1436): los que s'admiraron “those who were amazed”.^[2] The Breve diccionario dates the verb about 1440.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The first senses were those of Latin: to be astonished, and to cause astonishment.^[2] Autoridades (1726) defines the verb as to cause admiration and to look at something with awe at its quality, value or size.^[10] In 1869 the Academy added the sense of considering with pleasure and surprise something beautiful or remarkable.^[11] In present-day Spanish the main sense is to esteem someone or something highly, while the older sense “to surprise” survives in me admira que….^[4][12] The earliest record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo in 1549, uses the verb for impressing the Christians.^[13]

Timeline

• 1350–1400 – Juan Fernández de Heredia has the participle admirantes.^[8]
• 1427–1428 – Enrique de Villena uses admirado in his Aeneid.^[9]
• 1436 – Santillana's Comedieta de Ponza has the reflexive admirarse “to be amazed”.^[2]
• c. 1440 – the date the Breve diccionario gives for the verb, together with admirable and admiración.^[3]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin dictionary glosses Latin admiror as se maravillar de algo.^[14]
• 1549 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[13]
• 1575 – the popular form almirado.^[2]
• 1726 – Autoridades gives the senses “to cause admiration” and “to look at with awe”.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives an etymology, from Latin admirari.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (of something unexpected or extraordinary) To surprise or amaze: Nos admiró la rapidez de su respuesta.^[4][12]
2. To look at or contemplate with special delight something or someone of remarkable qualities; also reflexive.^[4][16]
3. To admire: to hold someone or something in high esteem as outstanding.^[4][1]
4. (reflexive, with de) To marvel at something, to be astonished.^[12][1]

Word family

• admirador

Related words

• admirable
• admiración
• admirativo
• mirar
• maravilla
• Latin admīror

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. admirar
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mirar
4. ^ a b c d e 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. admirar
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. admirar
9. ^ 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. admirar
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 88
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 15
12. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
13. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
14. ^ 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. admirar
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 22
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial