alabar

Forms

alabar (first-person singular present alabo, first-person singular preterite alabé, past participle alabado)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote alavar, alauar and allabar.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin alapor (“to boast”).^[4][5][6][1] Corominas calls it a typically Castilian word: Portuguese alabar must be a borrowing from Castilian on phonetic grounds, beside the native Portuguese verb gabar, and Catalan alabar, though well rooted today, is also taken from Castilian, since it does not appear before the 17th century.^[4] García de Diego instead lists the verb as a native outcome in both Castilian and Catalan.^[7]

The Latin verb is found in Christian writers such as the Itala and Commodian (3rd century), and in glosses.^[4] García de Diego and Wiktionary cite it from Plautus, Wiktionary with the original sense “to slap”, but Corominas states that it does not occur in Plautus.^[7][1][4] Corominas takes an adjective subalapa (“boastful”) in the single manuscript of Petronius as a sign that the verb was current by the 1st century AD, though Ernout, among others, doubts or rejects that reading.^[4]

The origin of the Latin verb is disputed.^[4] It may come from Latin alapa (“a slap, a box on the ear”), in the sense “to threaten with slaps”, hence “to boast of one's strength”.^[4][5][8] Corominas also allows a verb meaning “to strike”, with the boaster beating his own chest, and rejects the idea that the noun was extracted from a vulgar form of a verb “to stone”, because it is already found in Phaedrus, Petronius and Juvenal.^[4] Gómez de Silva suggests that the noun belongs with Ancient Greek κόλαφος (kólaphos, “a blow, a slap”), a comparison Lewis and Short also make.^[8][9] Wiktionary calls it of unknown origin.^[1]

The same noun gave Aragonese lapo (“a slap”), and exalapar (“to tear”), which Corominas derives from a Latin compound with ex-.^[4] The older dictionaries derived the Spanish verb from laudō (“to praise”): Covarrubias in 1611, the Diccionario de Autoridades in 1726, and the Academy's editions of 1884 and 1899 through a compound allaudare.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) has the verb only in the reflexive, “to boast”: the people of Alcocer, seeing the Cid apparently withdraw, rejoice in ¡Dios, cómmo se alabavan! “God, how they boasted!”^[4][14] Later in the poem the Infantes de Carrión sit alabándos' “boasting” of their outrage.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The transitive sense “to praise” grew out of the reflexive “to boast”, and it already appears in Berceo in the 13th century.^[4][15] Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for praising God, and his legal prose for boasting of a married woman's favours.^[16] Both senses run through the Middle Ages: the Tentative Dictionary records alabar “to praise” and alabarse “to boast of a bad deed”.^[3]

Covarrubias in 1611 quotes proverbs on praising one's own goods (cada buhonero alaba sus agujas “every pedlar praises his needles”) and notes that es para alabar a Dios was said of fine crops.^[10] The Academy added the reflexive sense and the proverb quien no se alaba, de ruin se muere in 1817; it was taken to mean that the overly modest do not get on.^[17][18]

In Mexico and Guatemala the verb is also intransitive, “to sing the alabado”, a hymn sung on the haciendas.^[19][20] Several Caribbean and Central American countries use the proverb ¡alábate pato, que mañana te mato! against people who boast of themselves.^[21]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has the reflexive alabarse “to boast”.^[4][2]
• 13th century – Berceo uses the verb transitively, “to praise”.^[4]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of praising God.^[16]
• c. 1280 – first record of the noun alabanza.^[5]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin laudo and collaudo as its equivalents.^[22]
• 1574 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the verb from Latin laudare;^[10] alabancioso “boastful” is first recorded the same year.^[10][4]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as expressing esteem for someone's merit.^[11]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the reflexive “to boast” and the proverb quien no se alaba, de ruin se muere.^[17]
• 2001 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology Late Latin alapari “to boast”.^[24]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To praise: to express approval or admiration of someone or something by pointing out their qualities: Todos alabaron la paciencia del maestro.^[6][25]
2. (transitive) To worship and glorify in prayer, especially God.^[6]
3. (reflexive, with de) To boast of something: Se alababa de haber ganado sin esfuerzo.^[6][25]
4. (intransitive, Mexico, Guatemala) To sing the alabado hymn.^[19][20]

Word family

• alabanza
• alabancioso

Related words

• loar
• Latin alapa
• Portuguese gabar

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. alabar
3. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 21
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 100
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. alabar
6. ^ 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. alabar
7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 290
8. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 48
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 94
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 152
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 39
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 35
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. alabar
15. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. alabar
16. ^ 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. alabar
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 35
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 25
19. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 81
20. ^ a b García Icazbalceta, Joaquín (1899), Vocabulario de mexicanismos comprobado con ejemplos y comparado con los de otros países hispano-americanos, México: La Europea, p. s.v. alabar
21. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. alabar
22. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 288
23. ^ 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. alabar
24. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. alabar
25. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. alabar