arraigar

Forms

arraigar (first-person singular present arraigo, first-person singular preterite arraigué, past participle arraigado)^[1] Old Spanish wrote arraygar and araygar.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish a- + raigar.^[5] The simple verb was in general use from about 1240 (the Fuero Viejo) to the 15th century, and Nebrija still admits both;^[6][7] Corominas's first sure record of the prefixed verb is the participle arraigado “fixed” in 1399.^[6][7] He notes that an example in the Partidas may not be in the manuscripts, which usually have the simple verb, that the one cited from Juan Ruiz is a misreading of a phrase with the simple verb, and that the one in the Poema de Fernán González is a 15th-century copyist's change.^[6]

The simple verb is from Latin rādīcor (“to take root”),^[6][8] from rādīx (“root”).^[9] Corominas explains its ⟨g⟩, against the ⟨z⟩ of raíz, by the same alternation as in perdiz and perdigón or nariz and narigudo, which kept such formations alive in Spanish.^[6] Wiktionary, García de Diego and the REW instead start from a Vulgar Latin compound *arradicāre, which would also explain Portuguese arraigar and Galician arraigar.^{[1][8][10][11]} The REW also traces French arracher “to pull out” to that verb in the sense “to seize by the root”, but considers the French form doubtful.^[10]

De Vaan reconstructs the Latin noun as *wrād-ī- and relates it to Old English wyrt.^[9] Wiktionary takes it from Proto-Indo-European *wréh₂ds (“root”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first dated manuscript with the prefixed verb is the Fuero de Zamora (1289), where a vezino araygado is a settled resident.^[2] The CDH also has arraygado in the second part of Alfonso X's Estoria de España (1270–1284), of people rooted in a land with their bodies, goods and wives.^[2] Alfonso's prose more often has the simple verb in the same senses: raygados “settled” in a place, and a greed raygada in the heart.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense, of vices or passions taking hold, is old: in 1293 the Castigos say that all the evils of the world are aRaygados enla cobdiçia “rooted in greed”.^[2][13] The literal sense “to take root” is in Nebrija (c. 1495), who glosses it hazer raizes with Latin radico and stirpesco.^[14] Covarrubias (1611) also uses it of a man who settles somewhere by buying land and marrying there, and of a fever that will not pass.^[15]

Autoridades (1726) gives it as a legal term: to require sureties from a party who has no real estate (bienes raíces).^[16] The Academy's 1843 dictionary defines the reflexive as settling in a place by acquiring real estate there.^[17] Corominas notes that arraigarse and intransitive arraigar have coexisted since the 16th century, the latter prevailing today, though Argentina also uses the reflexive.^[6] In Mexico, Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, Chile and Argentina it means to order someone by a court notice not to leave a town, and in Mexico also to require bail.^[18][19]

Timeline

• c. 1240 – the simple verb raigar in the Fuero Viejo.^[6][7]
• 1270–1284 – arraygado in the Estoria de España.^[2]
• 1289 – the Fuero de Zamora: vezino araygado.^[2]
• 1293 – the Castigos: evils aRaygados in greed.^[2]
• 1399 – Corominas's first sure record, arraigado “fixed”.^[6][7]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: arraigar hazer raizes.^[14]
• 1515 – first record in the Americas, of virtues tan arraigadas in Tierra Firme.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the sense of settling somewhere.^[15]
• 1726 – Autoridades records the legal sense.^[16]
• 1737 – first record of the noun arraigo.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, also reflexive) To take root: Los rosales nuevos arraigaron enseguida.^[5][21][1]
2. (intransitive, mostly reflexive) Of a habit or way of behaving, to become firmly established.^[5]
3. (intransitive, also reflexive) To settle permanently in a place, forming ties with its people and things.^[5][1]
4. (law) To guarantee the liability that may result from a lawsuit.^[5][21]
5. (transitive) To establish something firmly; to confirm someone in a habit.^[5][1]
6. (Latin America, law) To order someone by a court notice not to leave a town or territory.^[5][18]

Word family

• arraigo
• desarraigar
• arraigamiento

Related words

• raíz
• raigar
• radicar
• enraizar
• raigambre
• Portuguese arraigar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. arraigar
3. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 50
4. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. arraigar
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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. arraigar
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 755
7. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. raíz
8. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 709
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 Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 666
11. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 355
12. ^ 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. arraigar
13. ^ 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. 382
14. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 296
15. ^ 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. 216
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 399
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 65
18. ^ 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. arraigar
19. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 108
20. ^ 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. arraigar
21. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. arraigar