arder

Forms

arder (first-person singular present ardo, first-person singular preterite ardí, past participle ardido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ārdeō (“to be on fire, burn”).^[2][3][4][1] The same verb is Portuguese arder, Galician arder, Asturian arder, Catalan ardre, Old Occitan ardre, Old French ardoir, Italian ardere and Romanian arde.^[5][6]

De Vaan derives the Latin verb from āridus (“dry”) (also ārdus), a derivative of āreō (“to be dry”), from *ās-ē- (“to be dry”) and Proto-Indo-European *h₂eh₁s-eh₁- (“to be dry”), with cognates in Tocharian.^[7] Wiktionary adds that the same root gave āra (“altar”).^[8]

Corominas notes that the verb has always been mainly intransitive in Spanish, as in Latin.^[2] He records a transitive use, “to burn something”, found already in the Low Latin of Spain at the end of the 11th century and frequent until the 17th, which Autoridades already called rare.^[2][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the Glosas Silenses, of the second half of the 10th century.^[2][3] In the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) it is the burning bush of Moses, which burned and was not consumed: en la flama del fuego … que ardia e nos quemava.^[10] The Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223) describes a mountain in Cilicia that arde de noche e echa de si grandes fuegos “burns at night and throws out great fires”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Figurative uses are old: Covarrubias (1611) records arder en ira “to burn with anger”, and notes that poets use the verb for loving to excess.^[11] Autoridades has “to love vehemently”, with a line of Fray Luis de León.^[9] The proverb arde verde por seco, “the green burns along with the dry”, meant that the innocent pay for the guilty.^[12] In 1884 the Academy described the constructions arder de or en with passions and its use for wars and quarrels that rage; in 1899 it added the rotting of manure, which gives off heat and vapour.^[13][14]

The pronominal arderse is used for a house or a street catching fire, and in Asturias for food that burns or turns sour.^[2] The DLE also has it for crops, straw or tobacco spoiled by heat and damp.^[4] In Honduras, Panama and Colombia the verb is transitive, “to annoy someone”; in Nicaragua the pronominal means to take offence, and in Mexico the colloquial dative construction expresses resentment.^[15][1] In Cuba arderse was said of coffee fermenting in the heap.^[16]

Timeline

• 950–1000 – first record, in the Glosas Silenses.^[2][3]
• c. 1200 – the burning bush in La fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy).^[10]
• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo, the first hit known from a contemporary manuscript.^[10]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of a mountain called Vulcan que arde siempre.^[17]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin ardeo and ardesco.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records arder en ira and the poets' use for love.^[11]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades notes that the transitive use is rare.^[9]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the rotting of manure.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To burn, to be on fire: La leña seca arde enseguida.^[4][1]
2. (intransitive) To feel a burning heat in a part of the body; to sting or smart.^[4][1]
3. (intransitive) Of a thing, to be very hot or give off great heat.^[4]
4. (intransitive) To be consumed by a strong passion or feeling: arder de rabia.^[4][1]
5. (intransitive) To be in great agitation or turmoil.^[4]
6. (intransitive) Of manure, to rot, giving off heat and vapour.^[4][1]
7. (pronominal, rare) Of crops, straw, olives or tobacco, to spoil through heat and damp.^[4]
8. (transitive, obsolete) To set on fire.^[4][2]
9. (transitive, Honduras, Panama, Colombia) To annoy someone.^[15]

Word family

• ardiente
• enardecer
• ardimiento

Related words

• ardiondo
• árido
• Portuguese arder

Usage notes

Estar algo que arde means that a situation is extremely tense, and estar alguien que arde, that someone is furious.^[4] The verb is regular (ardo, ardí, ardido).^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 318
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. arder
4. ^ 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. arder
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. ardere
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. ardere
7. ^ 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. āreō
8. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. areo
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 381
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. arder
11. ^ 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. 208
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 62
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 94
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 86
15. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. arder
16. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 128
17. ^ 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. arder
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 296