amblar

Forms

amblar (first-person singular present amblo, first-person singular preterite amblé, past participle amblado)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote anblar, and anbrar is found in a manuscript of the 1390 Cortes of Guadalajara.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ambulō (“to walk”), the popular outcome of the Latin verb.^[4][5][6][1] The Diccionario de Autoridades already explained it as the Latin verb with its unstressed vowel dropped.^[7] The learned doublet is ambular, taken from Latin in the 17th century.^[4][5][1] The same Latin verb is Catalan amblar, Occitan amblar, French ambler and Italian ambiare, which mean “to amble”, and Romanian umbla (“to walk”).^[8] In medieval Galician-Portuguese lyric, ambrar meant “to sway the hips, to fornicate”.^[4]

The Latin verb is formed from the prefix ambi- (“around”) and a verb meaning “to wander”, from Proto-Italic *alā- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂elh₂- (“to wander”).^[9][1] Its cognates include ἀλάομαι (aláomai, “to wander”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is first seen in its present participle, in the Disputa del alma y el cuerpo (c. 1201), which lists las mulas bien amblantes “the smoothly ambling mules” among the vanities of the rich.^[10][5][2] The infinitive appears in Alfonso X's General estoria (c. 1275, in an early 14th-century copy): the rider went quanto la su bestia podie amblar “as fast as his beast could amble”.^[10][3] The DCECH's first record is the Corbacho of 1438, where a woman complains of her mule: trota e non anbla “it trots and does not amble”.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb named the gait of a horse or mule that moves both legs of one side together.^[2][6] Nebrija gives a second sense, used of a woman, the movement of the hips in sexual intercourse; the Diccionario de Autoridades recorded it in 1726 but said it was no longer used.^[7][11] In 1770 the Academy labelled the verb itself obsolete, defining it as the gait of a riding animal.^[12] In 1899 it gave the modern definition, citing the giraffe as an animal that ambles, and added that horses are taught this gait.^[13] The derivatives amblador and ambladura name an ambling animal and the gait itself.^[4][5]

Timeline

• c. 1201 – mulas bien amblantes in the Disputa del alma y el cuerpo.^[10][5]
• c. 1275 – the infinitive in Alfonso X's General estoria.^[10][3]
• 1390 – the Cortes of Guadalajara regulate a mule that a dealer shows anblar.^[2]
• 1438 – the Corbacho has trota e non anbla.^[4][2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija distinguishes amblar la bestia and amblar la muger.^[11][14]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades calls the verb obsolete.^[7]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the modern definition and the etymology from Latin ambulare.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (of a quadruped) To amble, moving the foreleg and hind leg of the same side together.^[6][1][15]
2. (obsolete) To move the body lewdly.^[6][15]

Word family

• amblador
• ambladura

Related words

• ambular
• andar
• Latin ambulō
• Catalan amblar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f 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. amblar
3. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. amblar
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. 1, 240
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ambular
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. amblar
7. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 265
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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. ^ 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. amblar
11. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 292
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 220
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 59
14. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. amblar
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. amblar