agosto

Forms

agosto m (plural agostos)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote agusto and augusto.^[2] The form agost is found in medieval documents of the Aragonese area (Murcia 1272, Tarazona 1304) and survives in Upper Aragon.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin agustus, from Latin Augustus, the name of the month given in honour of the emperor Octavian Augustus.^[4][5][6][1] The month had earlier been called Sextīlis, the sixth month of the old Roman year.^[7][8] In Vulgar Latin the first syllable was reduced from ⟨au-⟩ to ⟨a-⟩.^[9][8][1]

The same Vulgar Latin form gave Portuguese agosto, Galician agosto, Catalan agost, Occitan agost, French août, Italian agosto and Romanian agust.^[10][11][1]

The adjective behind the name, meaning “venerable, majestic”, was first a religious word, given to the emperor as a title.^[1] De Vaan derives it from a noun *augos, related to augeō (“to increase”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₂eug- (“to grow”).^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH and the BDELC date the word from 1192.^[4][5] A charter of Aguilar de Campoo of 1201 is dated el primer día de agosto, “the first day of August”.^[3] A document of Huesca of 1100 already has the form agusto.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word also meant the summer harvest: in Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo (c. 1230) a man goes over the mountains a agosto coger, “to gather the harvest”.^[3] The REW notes the same sense in most French dialects and in Galician.^[10] The phrase hacer su agosto “to make one's harvest”, that is, to profit from a good opportunity, is recorded from 1523 in Guevara, and in Cervantes's Gitanilla (1613).^[3] Autoridades in 1726 called it a very common phrase.^[3]

The Academy's dictionary of 1884 gave the etymology, the sense “harvest season” and proverbs such as Agosto, frío en rostro, “in August the cold begins to be felt on the face”.^[13] The DLE still lists the month, the harvest season and the crop.^[6]

Timeline

• 1192 – the DCECH's first record.^[4][5]
• 1201 – a charter of Aguilar de Campoo is dated el primer día de agosto.^[3]
• c. 1230 – Berceo uses agosto for the harvest.^[3]
• 1272 – the Aragonese form agost in a document of Murcia.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin sextilis and augustus.^[14]
• 1523 – Guevara: hecho el agosto, the first record of the phrase.^[3]
• 1554 – first record in the Americas, in Peru.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains that the month was named after Octavian Augustus.^[7]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology and the proverbs of the month.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. August, the eighth month of the year, with 31 days.^[6][1]
2. In some regions, the harvest season, when the grain is gathered.^[6][16]
3. The crop that is gathered (cosecha).^[6][16]

Word family

• agostar
• agostizo

Related words

• augusto
• Latin Augustus
• Portuguese agosto
• Catalan agost

Usage notes

Hacer su agosto means to make a good profit out of an opportunity: Los hoteleros hicieron su agosto con el festival.^[3][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. agosto
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. agosto
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 73
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. agosto
6. ^ 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. agosto
7. ^ 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. 78
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 140
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. augustus
11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 797
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 Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 30
14. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 286
15. ^ 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. agosto
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. agosto