arrojar

Forms

arrojar (first-person singular present arrojo, first-person singular preterite arrojé, past participle arrojado)^[1] A variant arronjar was used by Sánchez de Badajoz and Mateo Alemán and in other Andalusian and Spanish American texts, and lives on in the Judeo-Spanish of Morocco and the Levant; a Granada writer of 1601 took it for the Castilian form beside his own arrojar.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *rotulāre (“to roll; to send rolling”), from Latin rotō (“to turn round, whirl”), from rota (“wheel”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas notes that a form *arrotulāre may have been made with the prefix to give a transitive “make roll”, but he finds this uncertain.^[2][1] The etymology is due to Menéndez Pidal; the verb at first meant “to send rolling down a slope”, and then “to throw, hurl”.^[2] Cuervo's derivation from Catalan arruixar (“to sprinkle”) rests on mistaken premises: the medieval ⟨j⟩ of the Spanish verb stood for a voiced sound.^[2][2]

Related words of the same meaning survive in Asturian arrullu (“act of rolling a log or rock down a slope”), in Hecho and Ansó as Aragonese arrullar (“to throw away”), in the north-west of Catalonia as Catalan arrullar (“to send a rock tumbling down”), and in Béarn as Occitan arroulha.^[2] Portuguese arrojar is a borrowing from Spanish.^[2]

The cluster -tl- of the Vulgar Latin verb became a palatal /ʎ/, then Old Spanish /ʒ/, and modern /x/; this palatal closed the vowel before it, so that it did not become a diphthong, just as Latin oculus gave ojo.^[1][2] The Latin noun for “wheel” goes back to a Proto-Indo-European adjective meaning “revolving”.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are of the mid-13th century: the Bocados de oro advise that when a dog leaves its master to follow you, you should arrojarle piedras, “throw stones at it”, for it will leave you in the same way.^[6][7] The Calila e Dimna of 1251 has a woman throw a razor blindly: arrojóle la navaja a ciegas.^[8][7]

Semantic evolution

From throwing an object the verb extended to giving off light, flames or rays, as Autoridades shows in 1726, and to throwing a person out angrily.^[9] Reflexive arrojarse came to mean to throw oneself down from a height, to rush at someone, and to venture boldly on something; from this sense come arrojo “daring”, from the mid-17th century, and arrojado “bold”.^[4][3][2] Cervantes wrote arrojarse en (the sea) where later grammar preferred a.^[2]

Of accounts and documents, arrojar means to show as a result.^[4][10] It also means “to vomit”, especially in the Canaries and Andalusia.^[4][11][12] Covarrubias in 1611 explained the word from Latin ruo “to rush down”, and reported Guadix's view that it was Arabic.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – arrójale piedras in the Bocados de oro, known from a 15th-century copy.^[6][7]
• 1251 – the Calila e Dimna has arrojóle la navaja.^[8]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz writes arrojóme la cayada.^[8][14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin iacio and iaculor.^[15]
• 1532 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[16]
• 1601 – a Granada writer calls arronjar the Castilian form.^[2]
• 1604 – arrojadizo appears.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the verb from Latin ruo.^[13]
• 1726 – Autoridades defines it as throwing something away with force.^[9]
• Mid-17th century – arrojo “daring” is recorded.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To throw, hurl, fling: to send something through the air with force.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To throw or drop something into a place; to dump: Arrojaron los restos al contenedor.^[4]
3. (transitive) To give off, emit smoke, light or a smell.^[4][1]
4. (transitive) To throw someone out of a place; to remove someone from a post.^[4][1]
5. (transitive) Of a plant: to put out shoots or leaves.^[4]
6. (transitive) Of an account or document: to show as a result, yield: El balance arroja pérdidas.^[4][1]
7. (transitive) To vomit.^[4][11]
8. (reflexive) To throw oneself down from a height: Se arrojó desde el puente.^[4]
9. (reflexive) To rush violently at someone or something.^[4]
10. (reflexive) To launch into something without regard for its difficulties or risks.^[4]

Word family

• arrojadizo
• arrojado
• arrojo

Related words

• rodar
• rueda
• Latin roto

Usage notes

In Asturias a separate verb arrojar, formed from rojo “red”, means to heat an oven red-hot.^[17][10]

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 h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 358
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. arrojar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. arrojar
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. arrojar
7. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. arrojar
8. ^ a b c 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. 393
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 417
10. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. arrojar
11. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. arrojar
12. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 60
13. ^ 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. 222
14. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 52
15. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 297
16. ^ 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. arrojar
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 103