adobar

Forms

adobar (first-person singular present adobo, first-person singular preterite adobé, past participle adobado)^[1] The spelling adovar or adouar appears from the mid-13th century (Berceo) and alternates with adobar until the 18th century, with a rare example as late as 1890.^[2] Adubar is recorded only twice in Old Spanish, about 1260 and in a Leonese document of 1270.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French adober (“to dub a knight; to prepare”), which is from Frankish *dubban (“to push, strike”).^[3][4][5] Corominas compares dubba (“to push”), and explains the sense by the custom of striking the new knight on the shoulder with the flat of the sword.^[3][4][6] The DHLF also traces the Frankish word to the root of Old English dubban, and notes that from “arm a knight” French extended it to “prepare”, the sense also found in radouber (“to repair (a ship)”) and daube.^[7]

García de Diego reports Förster's view that the Spanish verb was taken from French adouber.^[8] The Tentative Dictionary gives Old Occitan adobar as the source instead.^[9] The verb is also Galician adobar, Portuguese adubar and Catalan adobar;^[3][8][10] Old Galician had adubar “to repair” in documents of the 15th century.^[3][8][10]

Eguílaz derived the sense “to tan” from Arabic دبغ (dabaḡa, “to tan”).^[11] Corominas rejects this: tanning is only one special use of the same verb.^[3] The Academy's dictionaries of 1884 to 1899 traced it to Medieval Latin adobare (“to adorn”).^[12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) uses the verb for preparing things and for getting oneself ready.^[14][2] The Cid tells the abbot yo adobaré conducho pora mí e pora mis vassallos “I will prepare provisions for myself and my vassals”.^[14] Before a meeting para las vistas se adobó “he got himself ready for the meeting”.^[2] The poem also uses the reflexive for putting on armour and taking up arms.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the verb meant “to prepare, arrange, repair, adorn”.^[3][9] Berceo uses it for putting right a fault.^[15][16] Alfonso X's prose has it for preparing and cooking, and also for coming to terms with someone, “to agree, settle”.^[17] 13th-century accounts and wills use it for repairing a wine press, a vat and a mill.^[14]

Covarrubias in 1611 gives “repair, mend”, “season food” (mutton adobado served at confraternity feasts and weddings), putting meat in adobo, and tanning hides and gloves.^[18] The Diccionario de Autoridades has the same senses, with adobar una caldera “to mend a cauldron” and a figurative “to remedy”.^[19] In Cervantes it often means “to improve”: las virtudes adoban la sangre “virtues ennoble one's lineage”.^[20] In 1843 the Academy listed “to agree, settle” as old.^[21] Gaspar y Roig recorded the farriers' sense, shaping the horseshoe and nails with the hammer, in 1853, and the Academy added it in 1884 as a synonym of atarragar.^[22][12]

Today the main senses are “to marinate” and “to tan”;^[5] “to cook” is rare and “to agree” obsolete.^[5] Moliner adds “to fix things by trickery, rig”.^[23] In Asturias the verb is also used for mending nets, and in León for preparing minced meat with salt and paprika for sausages.^[24][25] An old naval sense was “to careen”.^[26]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses adobar for “prepare, make ready”.^[2][4]
• c. 1218–1300 – documents use it for repairing a wine press and a mill.^[14]
• c. 1255 – Berceo has the spelling adovar.^[2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for preparing and cooking.^[17]
• 1515 – first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[27]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records seasoning, marinating and tanning.^[18]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines “repair, mend”, “tan” and “season”.^[19]
• 1853 – Gaspar y Roig records the farriers' sense.^[22]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also pronominal) To prepare, arrange, make ready.^[5][28]
2. (transitive) To marinate: to put meat, fish or other food in adobo to season and preserve it: Adobamos el lomo la víspera.^[5][1]
3. (transitive) To tan and dress hides for use.^[5][29]
4. (transitive, farriery) To shape the horseshoe and nails with the hammer so that they fit the hoof.^[5][23]
5. (transitive, rare) To cook (guisar).^[5]
6. (transitive, obsolete) To agree, settle (a pact).^[5][17]

Word family

• adobo

Related words

• French adouber
• Portuguese adubar
• Catalan adobar

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. adobar
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 56
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. adobar
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. adobar
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. adobar
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. adouber
8. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2363
9. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 12
10. ^ a b Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 104
11. ^ Eguílaz y Yanguas, Leopoldo de (1886), Glosario etimológico de las palabras españolas (castellanas, catalanas, gallegas, mallorquinas, portuguesas, valencianas y bascongadas) de origen oriental, Granada: La Lealtad, p. 81
12. ^ a b 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
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 20
14. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. adobar
15. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 136
16. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 29
17. ^ a b c Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. adobar
18. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 68
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 89
20. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 41
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 14
22. ^ a b Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 46
23. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. adobar
24. ^ Rato y Hevia, Apolinar de (1891), Vocabulario de las palabras y frases bables que se hablaron antiguamente y de las que hoy se hablan en el Principado de Asturias, Madrid: Manuel G. Hernández, p. 5
25. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. adobar
26. ^ O'Scanlan, Timoteo (1831), Diccionario marítimo español, Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 65
27. ^ 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. adobar
28. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. adobar
29. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. adobar