ambos

Forms

ambos m pl (feminine plural ambas)^[1] Old Spanish usually had amos, amas, also written ammos, ammas, and less often ambos or anbos.^[2][3] Dambos is found in Morisco texts and in Leonese today.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ambōs (“both”).^[4][5][6][1] The usual Old Spanish form was amos, the only truly Castilian one.^[4][1] The form with ⟨b⟩ lived on beside it, first as a Leonese form, and then spread with the support of the Latin spelling.^[4][1] Henríquez Ureña explains the Castilian form by the lengthening of the nasal before a voiced stop, /mb/ > /mm/ > /m/, as in the Cid.^[7] The same word is Portuguese ambos, Galician ambos and Asturian amos, and the compounds Occitan ambedós and Catalan ambdós join it with the numeral “two”.^[8][9][1]

The Latin word is an old dual, its ending ⟨-ō⟩ continuing the Indo-European dual ending.^[10] It goes back to *ambō and is related to Ancient Greek ἄμφω (ámphō, “both”).^[10][1] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *h₂(e)nt-bʰoH (“both”), perhaps a case form of *h₂ent- (“face, front”), as Jasanoff suggested.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to the Glosas Emilianenses of about 950.^[4][5] The DEMel lists ambo in the Glosas Silenses (c. 950–1000) as a primary record.^[2] In the Cantar de mio Cid it means “both” in amos los braços “both arms”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The phrase am(b)os a dos “both of them” is already in the Cid and Berceo.^[4] Cuervo thought it an alteration of ambos dos, with a from dos a dos.^[4] Schuchardt saw in it the Latin conjunction ac “and”, which fits the variant ambos y dos.^[4] Corominas found ambos dos only from Santillana, but the TDHLE records it in the Fuero de Avilés about 1155, which supports Cuervo.^[3] The compound entrambos occurs in Latin documents of 1031 and 1032.^[4] In the 16th century Garcilaso and Juan de Valdés still wrote entramos, and Valdés judged it better than ambos.^[4]

Covarrubias in 1611 called ambos a word relating to two things, and noted entrambos and entramos.^[12] Autoridades called it a pure Latin word, and ambos a dos a pleonasm much used in Castilian.^[13] Terreros made the same remark.^[14] The Academy long classed it as a plural adjective, and the current dictionary classes it as an indefinite adjective and pronoun.^[15][6] Ambos a dos is now literary.^[6][16]

Timeline

• c. 950 – first record, in the Glosas Emilianenses.^[4][5]
• 1031 – entrambos in a Latin document.^[4][5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has amos and amos a dos.^[11][4]
• c. 1155 – ambos dos in the Fuero de Avilés.^[3]
• 1345 – Juan Manuel uses ambos in his Ordenanzas.^[17]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives ambos a dos for Latin ambo.^[18]
• 1525 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records ambos, entrambos and entramos.^[12]
• 1726 – Autoridades calls ambos a dos a pleonasm.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. both: the one and the other, with a plural noun for two things already named or understood: Se lavó ambas manos.^[6][1]

Pronoun

1. Both, the one and the other, the two of them: Tengo dos primos y ambos viven en Lima.^[6][1]

Word family

• ambo
• entrambos

Related words

• Latin ambō
• Portuguese ambos
• Ancient Greek ἄμφω (ámphō)

Usage notes

Ambos a dos and ambas a dos mean the same as ambos and are now literary.^[6][16] Alemany's dictionary of 1917 also records an unrelated ambos, a measure of weight and dry capacity used in La Unión, in the Philippines.^[20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. ambos
3. ^ 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. ambos
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 238
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ambos
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. ambos
7. ^ Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (2015), Obras completas, vol. 12: 1936–1940 III, ed. Miguel D. Mena, Santo Domingo: Ministerio de Cultura, p. 94
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 487
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. ambo
10. ^ a b c 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 Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 50
12. ^ 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. 165
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. ambos
14. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 93
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 58
16. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ambos
17. ^ Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 285
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 292
19. ^ 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. ambos
20. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 107