ahumar

Forms

ahumar (first-person singular present ahúmo, first-person singular preterite ahumé, past participle ahumado)^[1] Old Spanish wrote afumar or affumar; the Academy has listed afumar as obsolete since 1726, and it survives in Asturias.^[2][3] Ajumar and the shortened jumar are regional in Spain and the Americas, chiefly in the sense “get drunk”.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish afumar, inherited from Vulgar Latin *affūmāre (“to smoke”).^[4][2][5] The Latin verb is formed from ad- and fūmus (“smoke”), or from fūmō (“to give off smoke”), the classical verb.^[1][4] Corominas and the Breve diccionario list the verb among the derivatives of humo, with a date of about 1530.^[6][7]

The same verb is Portuguese afumar, Galician afumar, Asturian afumar, Catalan afumar, Occitan afumar, Italian affumare, Sardinian affumare and Romanian afuma.^[5][8][9]

The noun goes back to *fūmo- and Proto-Indo-European *dʰuh₂mós (“smoke”); its cognates include Sanskrit धूम (dhūmá, “smoke”), Lithuanian dūmai and Old Church Slavonic дꙑмъ (dymŭ).^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso X's Lapidario (1250–1279) uses the old form for women who expose themselves to the smoke of a burning stone: si las mugieres se affuman con ella.^[11] A will from León of 1307 has the modern spelling: rent is left to the cathedral chapter para ahumar estas candelas, apparently “to keep these candles burning”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages afumar casa also meant to keep a house, to live in it: the Fuero de Brihuega speaks of every man que afume casa in the town.^[13] The noun ahumada, a smoke signal made from a watchtower, is common in 15th-century chronicles.^[12][6]

Autoridades (1726) gives three senses: to give off smoke, to fill with smoke or cure in smoke (bacon, dried meat), and to perfume.^[14] The Academy added “take a smoky taste”, of food, in 1884, and in 1899 “be blackened by smoke” and, colloquially, “get drunk”.^[15][16] The drunken sense is also Cuban, where Pichardo records it as a vulgarism.^[17] Today the main sense is smoking food to preserve or flavour it.^[4][18] Andalusian hunters say ahumar for shooting game that another hunter has missed, and in Salamanca it means “run away”.^[19][20]

Timeline

• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has the form affuman.^[11]
• 1307 – a will from León has the spelling ahumar.^[12]
• 1406–1411 – the chronicle of John II speaks of ahumadas, smoke signals.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin fumo for ahumar “give off smoke”.^[21]
• c. 1530 – Corominas's first record of the form ahumar, in Guevara.^[6][7]
• 1571 – first record in the Americas, from Mexico City.^[22]
• 1726 – Autoridades records the word with the sense “cure in smoke”.^[14]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary adds the colloquial sense “get drunk”.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To expose (something) to smoke.^[4]
2. To smoke food to preserve it or give it flavour: ahumar truchas.^[4][18][1]
3. To fill (a place) with smoke; mostly reflexive, to fill with smoke.^[4]
4. To blacken with smoke; also reflexive.^[4]
5. (intransitive) Of something burning, to give off smoke.^[4]
6. (reflexive) Of a stew, to take on a smoky taste.^[4]
7. (reflexive, colloquial) To get drunk.^[1][23]

Word family

• ahumado
• ahumador
• ahumada

Related words

• humar
• humear
• humo
• sahumar
• fumar
• fumigar
• Portuguese afumar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. ahumar
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. ahumar
4. ^ 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. ahumar
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 427
7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. humo
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. ahumar
9. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. afumar
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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. ahumar
12. ^ 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. ahumar
13. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 37
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 141
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. 37
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 33
17. ^ Pichardo, Esteban (1875), Diccionario provincial casi-razonado de vozes y frases cubanas, 4th ed., La Habana: Imprenta El Trabajo, p. 8
18. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. ahumar
19. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 26
20. ^ Lamano y Beneite, José de (1915), El dialecto vulgar salmantino, Salamanca: Tipografía Popular, p. 199
21. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 287
22. ^ 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. ahumar
23. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ahumar