amigo

Forms

amigo m (plural amigos, feminine amiga, feminine plural amigas)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote amygo and amjgo; the form amico appears in the 12th century and again in 20th-century Chile.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish amigo, inherited from Latin amīcus (“friend”), which is formed from amō (“to love”).^[4][5][1][6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese amigo, Galician amigo, Asturian amigu, Catalan amic, French ami and Italian amico.^[7][1][8]

De Vaan reconstructs the verb as Proto-Italic *ama- (“to take, hold”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *h₃mh₃- (“to take hold of”): the Latin meaning would have gone from “to take by the hand” to “to regard as a friend”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to the Cantar de mio Cid.^[4] There (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) Martín Antolínez greets the moneylenders: ¿Ó sodes, Rachel e Vidas, los myos amigos caros? “Where are you, Rachel and Vidas, my dear friends?”^[2] The Cid also has ser amigo a uno “to be someone's friend”.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the noun also meant “lover”, and it was used as a form of address without real friendship, as in Alfonso X.^[11][12] Autoridades (1726) records the sense “a man living in concubinage” and the adjective “friendly”.^[13] The 1770 dictionary added the figurative “fond of something”, still current in phrases like amigo de trasnochar.^[14][5] The feminine amiga can also mean a schoolmistress for girls and, in Andalusia and Mexico, an infants' school.^[5]

In Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico amigo is a close, inseparable friend.^[15] English borrowed amigo in American use in 1837.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – first record, in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[4][2]
• c. 1155 – the Fuero de Avilés writes amicos.^[2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses amigo “friend”.^[12]
• 1330 – Juan Ruiz warns against false friends in the Libro de buen amor.^[2]
• 1515 – first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme, glossing guatiahos as “friends”.^[17]
• 1726 – Autoridades records the sense “a man living in concubinage”.^[13]
• 1837 – English borrows amigo.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A friend: a person linked to another by affection and trust.^[5][1]
2. A form of address to anyone, even a stranger, and a friendly greeting in letters.^[5]
3. A lover.^[5]

Adjective

1. Having a friendship with someone: Son muy amigos desde el colegio.^[5]
2. Friendly; belonging to friendship.^[5]
3. Fond of something: Es poco amigo de las fiestas.^[5]
4. (poetic) Of a thing: kind, favourable, pleasant.^[5]

Word family

• amigable
• amigar
• amigote
• amigovio
• amiguete
• amiguismo

Related words

• amistad
• amistoso
• enemigo
• amar
• amor
• Latin amīcus
• Portuguese amigo

Usage notes

Phrases include amigo de lo ajeno “thief” and amigo invisible or amigo secreto for the secret gift exchange.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. amigo
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. amigo
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 232
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. amigo
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. amigo
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 496
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. ami
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. amō
10. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. amigo
11. ^ 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. 4
12. ^ 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. amigo
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 269
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 223
15. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. amigo
16. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
17. ^ 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. amigo