anegar

Forms

anegar (first-person singular present anego, first-person singular preterite anegué, past participle anegado)^[1] In the Middle Ages the present had the diphthong, aniega, and forms such as anega are not found before the 16th century;^[2] aniega survived in much of Spanish America, in Argentina into the 19th century.^[2] Anagar is a dialect form of El Bierzo, Asturias, Cantabria and Tenerife.^[3][4]

Etymology

According to Corominas, it is inherited from Latin ēnecō (“to kill (especially by strangling or suffocation)”), a derivative of necō (“to kill”).^[2][5] The 2001 DLE, Moliner, Cunha and Machado give the same Latin verb.^[6][7][8] The current DLE gives only the simple Latin verb.^[9] Wiktionary, Gómez de Silva and Segura Munguía start instead from a Vulgar Latin *adnecō, with the prefix ad-.^[1][10][11]

Already in Late Latin both verbs had narrowed to “to kill by drowning”, and Cuervo found it in a Spanish text of 883.^[2] In Medieval Latin the simple verb meant “to drown” and “to be drowned”.^[12] Portuguese anegar, Galician anegar, Italian annegare and Romanian îneca continue the prefixed one, while French noyer, Occitan negar and Catalan negar continue the simple one.^[2][13][14]

Corominas argues that the old diphthong of the present shows that the verb did not continue the variant with short /i/ used by the Latin comic poets, and that the later undiphthongised present is analogical.^[2] The simple verb is formed from nex (“violent death”), from Proto-Indo-European *neḱ- (“to perish, disappear”), the root of Ancient Greek νεκρός (nekrós, “dead”).^[1][15][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Bocados de oro (c. 1250) has the first clear record, in the reflexive sense “to drown”: Non seas atal commo el que se aniega en el agua, “Do not be like one who drowns in the water”.^[3][16] Corominas dates the text about 1260.^[2] DEMel cites a record in the Fuero de Plasencia, which it dates 1221, and Alfonso X's Judizios (1254) has the simple form negara, “he will drown”.^[17][18]

Semantic evolution

Medieval chronicles use it for sinking ships: the Christians anegaron Moorish galleys in the 14th-century Gran crónica de Alfonso XI.^[19] Autoridades (1726) gives “to drown someone”, the figurative use of a ship that sinks, and “to flood”.^[20] The 1770 edition adds the phrase anegarse en llanto “to dissolve in tears”, and the 1869 edition put “to flood” first.^[21][22] Salvá and Domínguez record a nautical use: a ship that sails away “drowns” objects behind the horizon.^[23][24]

Cuervo's dictionary documents the medieval diphthong aniega in Spanish America, where it lasted in Argentina into the 19th century.^[2][25]

Timeline

• 883 – Cuervo finds the Late Latin sense “to drown” in a Spanish document.^[2]
• 1221 – DEMel's first record, in the Fuero de Plasencia.^[17]
• c. 1250 – the Bocados de oro has se aniega en el agua.^[3][16]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios has the simple form negara.^[18]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates anegarse la nave as Latin naufragium facere.^[26]
• 1549 – first record in the Americas, at Cartagena: ciénagas y tierra anegada.^[27]
• 1726 – Autoridades gives the senses “drown”, “sink” and “flood”.^[20]
• 1770 – the Academy records anegarse en llanto.^[21]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also reflexive) To flood, inundate (inundar): of water, to cover a place; also figurative.^[9][1]
2. (transitive, also reflexive) To fill or cover with water.^[9]
3. (transitive, mostly reflexive) To drown someone by plunging them into water; also figurative, as in anegarse en llanto.^[9][1]
4. (transitive, rare) To overwhelm, oppress, annoy.^[9]
5. (reflexive) To founder, sink (naufragar): La barca se anegó cerca del puerto.^[9][20]

Word family

• anegadizo
• anegación
• anegamiento
• aniego

Related words

• pernicioso
• Latin necō
• Portuguese anegar
• Catalan negar

Usage notes

The standard conjugation has no diphthong (anega, anegan), but aniega, the medieval form, survived in many parts of Spanish America.^[2] The verb is unrelated to negar “to deny”, which continues Latin negō.^[28]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 265
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. anegar
4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2435
5. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. anegar
6. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. anegar
7. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. anegar
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 249
9. ^ 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. anegar
10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. anegar
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 481
12. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. necare
13. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 5, 895
14. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. necāre
15. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. necō
16. ^ a b 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. 307
17. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. anegar
18. ^ 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. anegar
19. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. anegar
20. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 292
21. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 243
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 51
23. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 72
24. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 124
25. ^ Cuervo, Rufino José (1886–1893), Diccionario de construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana, vols. I–II (A–D), París: A. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 1, 463
26. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 293
27. ^ 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. anegar
28. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 5, 893