agrio

Forms

agrio (feminine agria, masculine plural agrios, feminine plural agrias)^[1] Old Spanish had agro, which remained normal until the 17th century and lives on in Albacete and other popular speech.^[2] The forms aigrio and aigro are recorded in Mexico and New Mexico.^[3]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Old Spanish agro, altered under the influence of the verb agriar.^[4][2][5] The old form is inherited from Late Latin ācrus (“sharp”), the form the classical Latin ācer (“sharp, keen”) took in Vulgar Latin after moving to the second declension, attested in late glosses.^[2][1][6]

Corominas notes that this verb and Old French aigrier seem to continue Vulgar Latin *acriare, so that the modern adjective was remade on the verb, as happened with amargo and bajo.^[2] The same Latin word is Portuguese agro, Catalan agre, French aigre, Italian agro, Sardinian agru and Romanian acru.^[2][7] The Asturian forms are agriu and agru.^[8]

The Latin adjective goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂eḱrós (“sharp”), with cognates in Ancient Greek ἄκρος (ákros, “highest, outermost”) and Lithuanian aštrùs (“sharp”).^[9][1] The long ⟨ā⟩ and the change to an i-stem are not fully explained.^[9][1] The sense “sour” grew out of “sharp, pungent”, as in the other words of the root, Latin acidus and acētum.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in the CDH is in La Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), which tells how the Passover lamb is eaten con pan sancenno e con lechezinos agros “with unleavened bread and bitter lettuces”.^[12] Corominas dates agro to 1251.^[2][5] The Alfonsine Lapidario (1250–1279) has the adjective in the sense “sour”, and DEMel lists agrio from the late 13th century.^[13][14] Corominas, however, doubts the early forms with ⟨i⟩, since the same texts have agro, and finds the first sure case in a careful edition of Pérez de Hita (1604); the Breve diccionario dates agrio to 1599.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Figurative senses are old: about 1440 Rodríguez del Padrón speaks of la muy agria relaçión del caso “the very bitter account of the case”, and in the 16th century agrio meant painful or hard to bear.^[3] Nebrija and Alonso de Palencia give only agro; a Granada writer of 1601 regarded agro as Andalusian and agrio as Castilian.^[2] Autoridades (1726) had agrio for sour fruit, for steep and rocky ground (La subida era agria) and for a harsh temper.^[15] The Academy added the noun for the juice of sour fruit in 1817 and the sense “brittle” of metals.^[16][17] The plural agrios for citrus fruit was in the Academy's dictionary by 1884.^[18]

In Latin America agrio also means sour-tempered, and in Honduras and El Salvador, of a matter, difficult or painful.^[19] In the Canaries and the Dominican Republic the noun is lemon or bitter-orange juice used as a dressing.^[3][20]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – lechezinos agros in La Fazienda de Ultra Mar (13th-century copy).^[12]
• 1251 – Corominas's first record of agro.^[2]
• c. 1440 – Rodríguez del Padrón uses agria figuratively.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija has only agro.^[2]
• 1534 – first record in the Americas, of steep ground in Peru.^[21]
• 1599 – the Breve diccionario's date for agrio.^[5]
• 1604 – Pérez de Hita, the first sure agrio in a careful edition.^[2]
• 1726 – Autoridades records the sour, steep and harsh senses.^[15]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the noun for sour juice.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy adds agrios for citrus fruit and the Latin etymology.^[18]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a taste or smell: sour, sharp and penetrating, like that of lemon or vinegar.^[4][1]
2. Having a sour taste or smell: limones agrios.^[4]
3. Having turned sour: El vino se había vuelto agrio.^[4][22]
4. Steep and hard to reach.^[4][22]
5. (figurative) Harsh, bitter, ill-tempered: carácter agrio.^[4][1]
6. Of a punishment or suffering: hard to bear.^[4]
7. Of a metal: brittle, not ductile or malleable.^[4]
8. (painting) Of colouring: lacking harmony or tone.^[4]

Noun

1. (rare) A sour juice.^[4]
2. (in the plural) Citrus fruit, such as lemons and oranges.^[4][23]

Word family

• agriamente
• agridulce
• agrura
• agraz
• agrazón

Related words

• acérrimo
• acre
• acrimonia
• acritud
• agriar
• agrión
• Latin ācer

Usage notes

Mascar las agrias means to hide one's annoyance.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 73
3. ^ a b c d 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. agrio
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. agrio
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. agrio
6. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. agrio
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. agru
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 1, 74
11. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. agrio
12. ^ 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. agro
13. ^ 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. agrio
14. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. agrio
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 123
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 27
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 19
18. ^ 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. 31
19. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. agrio
20. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. agrio
21. ^ 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. agrio
22. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. agrio
23. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. agrio