afrentar

Forms

afrentar (first-person singular present afrento, first-person singular preterite afrenté, past participle afrentado)^[1] Old and classical spellings include affrentar and afruentar;^[2] afruentar appears in the 1540 edition of the Tragedia Josephina under the influence of the noun afruenta.^[2] In the 13th century the same verb was often written afrontar, affrontar or afruentar: Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas (1254) has afruentan and his chess book (1283) affrontar.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish afrontar, inherited from Vulgar Latin *affrontāre, formed from ad (“to, towards”) and frōns (“forehead, front”).^[1][5][6] Corominas shows that the forms with ⟨o⟩ (recorded from 888) and with ⟨e⟩ (end of the 15th century in his records) began as variants of one word with no difference of meaning, a derivative common to all of western Romance, and points to Cuervo for the way they later parted.^[4][7] Modern Spanish keeps afrontar as the verb meaning “to face, confront”.^[8]

The vowel /e/ follows the change of Old Spanish fruente, recorded in 1124, to frente, and of the noun afruenta (c. 1260) to afrenta (mid-15th century).^[4] García de Diego explains the form with ⟨e⟩ by the influence of the noun.^[6] Autoridades and the TDHLE derive the verb from that noun, and the Academy's dictionaries of 1884 and 1899 from the prefix a- and the noun for “forehead”.^{[9][2][10][11]}

The Vulgar Latin verb also gave Italian affrontare, French affronter, Catalan afrontar and Portuguese afrontar.^[5] De Vaan finds no plausible etymology for the Latin noun.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The form with e first appears in a medieval Bible translation of about 1280, in Exodus 19:21, in the sense “to warn, enjoin”: Desçiende, afrenta al pueblo que non se atreuan a Dios para ver “Go down, warn the people not to dare to look upon God”.^[2][13] Earlier records of afrontar in the CDH include a sale of 1240 where it means “to border on” and the Fuero Juzgo (c. 1250–1260), where it means to summon someone formally.^[14]

Semantic evolution

In medieval Spanish the verb had a legal sense, “to require, enjoin, summon”, frequent in laws such as the Ordenamiento de Alcalá (1348), beside the senses “to insult”, “to outdo, humiliate” and “to put in a tight spot”, which Alfonso X's prose already shows.^[2][3] The Academy's 1770 dictionary still listed “to require, admonish” and “to put in danger” as old senses.^[15] From 1817 to 1899 its dictionaries also gave “to border on”, a sense of afrontar.^[16][11] In thieves' cant it meant “to flog”.^[17][18]

Since Autoridades the main sense has been “to dishonour, put to shame”.^[9] Cuervo documents it abundantly in Cervantes and Santa Teresa.^[7] The Americas have it from 1528, in Nicaragua.^[19] In Argentina it came to mean to cut someone's hair or beard in a ridiculous way, and in Costa Rica to shame someone.^[20][21]

Timeline

• 888 – first record of afrontar, the older form of the same verb.^[4]
• c. 1260 – the noun afruenta, later afrenta, in the Partidas.^[4]
• c. 1280 – the form afrentar in a medieval Bible translation, “to warn, enjoin”.^[2][13]
• 1348 – the Ordenamiento de Alcalá uses afrentado for a man formally summoned.^[2]
• end of the 15th century – Corominas's first record of afrentar.^[4]
• 1528 – first record in the Americas, in Nicaragua.^[19]
• 1591 – Percyvall translates it “to reproach”.^[22]
• 1726 – Autoridades defines it as “to defame, cause an affront”.^[9]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the reflexive “to be ashamed, to blush”.^[23]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from a- and frente.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To affront, insult or humiliate someone: Lo afrentó delante de todos sus compañeros.^[24][25][1]
2. (obsolete) To put someone in a tight spot or in danger that could bring shame.^[24]
3. (obsolete) To require or formally enjoin.^[24][2]
4. (reflexive) To be ashamed, to blush.^[24]
5. (Argentina) To cut someone's hair or beard in a ridiculous way.^[20][21]
6. (Costa Rica) To shame someone;^[20] (reflexive) to feel ashamed.^[20]

Related words

• afrenta
• afrontar
• frente
• enfrentar
• confrontar

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. afrentar
3. ^ a b 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. afrentar
4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 953
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 267
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 260
7. ^ a b Cuervo, Rufino José (1886–1893), Diccionario de construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana, vols. I–II (A–D), París: A. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 1, 246
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 281
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. afrentar
10. ^ 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. 28
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 25
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. afrentar
14. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. afrentar
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 91
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 24
17. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 27
18. ^ 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, 54
19. ^ 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, p. s.v. afrentar
20. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. afrentar
21. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 51
22. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 55
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 17
24. ^ a b c d 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. afrentar
25. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. afrentar