aunar

Forms

aunar (first-person singular present aúno, first-person singular preterite auné, past participle aunado)^[1] Cantabrian has ajunar, with the ⟨j⟩ of juntar.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin adūnō (“to make one, unite”).^[3][4][5][1] The Latin verb is formed from ad- (“to”) and ūnus (“one”).^[1][6] Lewis and Short find it mostly in Justin and the Church Fathers.^[7] The same verb is Portuguese aunar, Catalan aunar, Old French auner, Old Occitan azunar, Italian adunare and Romanian aduna, and Judeo-Spanish has Ladino ardunar.^[8][2]

The Latinising form adunar appears in Fray Luis de León and others.^[3] Berceo's aungar and ungar are not from a Vulgar Latin *adūnicō, in Corominas's view, but forms built on the present indicative and subjunctive of uncir, which continues iungō (“to yoke, join”).^[3]

The numeral continues *oinos, from *Hoi-no- (“one”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates it to 1555, in the Viaje de Turquía, but the verb is older.^[3][4] The DEMel finds the participle aunado in 13th-century documents from Sahagún.^[10] The first part of Alfonso X's General Estoria (c. 1275) has por estas razones aunadas, “for these reasons taken together”, and the second part acordaron de yr todos aunados a ell, “they agreed to go at him all together”.^[11][10]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades (1726) defines it as making people who were divided agree on a resolution or party, and notes that it is used more often as a reflexive “to unite, to league together”: se aunaban y conjuraban unas familias con otras.^[12] The Academy's 1817 edition adds a second sense, to mix two or more things into a single body.^[13] Cuervo collects both the transitive and the reflexive use in Quevedo, Coloma and Luis de la Puente.^[14] Today it is used mostly with abstract objects: aunar esfuerzos, aunar criterios.^[15][16] Judeo-Spanish aunarse kon means to side with someone.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1275 – Alfonso X's General Estoria uses aunadas and aunados.^[11]
• 1555 – the Viaje de Turquía, Corominas's first record.^[3][4]
• 1576 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[18]
• 1726 – Autoridades records it, mostly as a reflexive.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds the sense “to mix into one body”.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary refers it to adunar.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. To unite or ally people for a purpose; mostly reflexive: Los gremios se aunaron para defender sus derechos.^[5][1]
2. To unify (unificar), make into one.^[5]
3. To bring together or harmonize several things: aunar esfuerzos.^[5][15][16]

Word family

• aunamiento

Related words

• uno
• unir
• adunar
• Latin adūnō

Usage notes

The stressed ⟨u⟩ of the present takes a written accent, as in aúno, aúnan, like aullar.^[15][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 196
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 715
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. uno
5. ^ a b c d 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. aunar
6. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 19
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. adunare
9. ^ 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 Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. aunar
11. ^ 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. aunar
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 486
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 105
14. ^ 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, 783
15. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. aunar
16. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. aunar
17. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. aunâr
18. ^ 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. aunar
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 119