ayer

Forms

ayer^[1] Old Spanish had eri (Berceo), yer (Libro de Apolonio), yere and ayeri; the General estoria writes eyr.^[2][3][4] Asturian has ayeri.^[2][5] Wiktionary lists the variant ahier.^[1]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Old Spanish yer, also eri, which is inherited from Latin herī (“yesterday”), with an a- added at the front.^[2][6][1] Corominas explains this a- as in así.^[2][6] Gómez de Silva and Bénaben see it as an analogy with other adverbs and adverbial phrases that begin with a-, such as afuera, apenas and a menudo.^[7][8] The DLE and Moliner instead derive it from a Latin phrase ad herī, and Wiktionary gives as an alternative ab herī (“since yesterday”).^[9][10][1]

The same Latin word is Catalan ahir, Occitan ièr, French hier, Italian ieri and Romanian ieri.^[11][12] Catalan added the a- to an older hir, as it did to many words of the same function such as avui and així.^[13] Medieval Galician-Portuguese had Old Galician-Portuguese eiri and eire, but Galician onte and Portuguese ontem have since replaced them; they come from a word for “last night”.^[2] Corominas thinks the final vowel of the Latin word moved into the stem in phrases meaning “yesterday evening”, which explains the Old Galician-Portuguese stem ⟨eir-⟩, Old Occitan ieir and the Catalan form.^[2]

herī goes back to *hezi, with the ending of locatives such as domī (“at home”).^[1] Wiktionary takes it from Proto-Indo-European *dʰǵʰyési, the locative of a word for “yesterday”.^[1] De Vaan writes the Indo-European word differently and lists among its cognates Ancient Greek χθές (khthés) and the Germanic forms of German gestern and English yesterday.^[14][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel's first primary record is yere in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (1200–1250).^[3] The Libro de Apolonio (c. 1240, in a 14th-century copy) has „Só en sobejana cuyta, más que yer non era” “I am in greater distress than I was yesterday”.^[15][2] The form with a- is first found in the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in an early 15th-century copy): „nos ayer te ganamos e öy te perdemos” “yesterday we won you and today we lose you”.^[15] Corominas's first examples of ayer are in the Gran conquista de Ultramar and the Zifar, and the Breve diccionario dates it to about 1300.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

From the start the adverb meant the day before today.^[16] In the 15th century it was also used figuratively for “a short time ago”.^[16] The Diccionario de Autoridades gives both senses, with the phrase esso fué ayer “that was only yesterday”, said of something recent.^[17] The Academy's dictionary of 1770 adds the phrases de ayer acá and de ayer a hoy “in no time, lately”, and the proverb ayer vaquero, hoy caballero “yesterday a cowherd, today a gentleman”, on the changes of fortune.^[18]

The noun “the past” grew out of the adverb.^[9][10] Domínguez in 1846 records the poetic el ayer de la vida “the bygone youth of one's life”.^[19] Gaspar y Roig give a colloquial plural for the days before the present one, and the 2001 Academy dictionary the plural ayeres “times gone by”.^[20][21] The 1899 edition first gives the sense “in the past”.^[22]

Timeline

• 1200–1250 – yere in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[3]
• c. 1240 – yer in the Libro de Apolonio.^[15][2]
• 1240–1250 – ayer in the Libro de Alexandre, in a 15th-century copy.^[15]
• c. 1250 – the Breve diccionario's date for yer.^[6]
• 1272–1275 – the General estoria writes eyr.^[4]
• c. 1295 – ayer in the Gran conquista de Ultramar.^[16][2]
• 1495 – the compound antier “the day before yesterday”, later anteayer.^[6]
• 1539 – first record in the Americas, in Lima, in the phrase de ayer acá.^[23]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades notes that the word should be written with h, after Latin heri, but that usage has dropped it.^[17]
• 1770 – the Academy's dictionary records the proverb ayer vaquero, hoy caballero.^[18]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. heri” and the sense “in the past”.^[22]
• 1917 – Alemany derives it from Latin ad heri, as the DLE does today.^[24][9]

Meanings

Adverb

1. yesterday: on the day before today: Ayer llovió toda la tarde.^[9][1]
2. (usually after a preposition) The day before today: el periódico de ayer.^[9]
3. In the past, formerly: Lo que ayer era una aldea hoy es una ciudad.^[9][10]
4. (after a preposition) The past: las costumbres de ayer.^[9]

Noun

1. (masculine) The past, time gone by; in the plural ayeres, times gone by: Vive pensando en el ayer.^[9][21][1]

Word family

• anteayer
• antier
• trasanteayer

Usage notes

Antes de ayer and anteayer mean “the day before yesterday”.^[10] Salvá records an obsolete noun ayer “omen”, and Gaspar y Roig a tree of the Moluccas called ayer, whose cut branches give a liquid that quenches thirst;^[25][20][26] Echegaray takes this name from Malay.^[25][20][26]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 427
3. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. ayer
4. ^ 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. ayer
5. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. ayeri
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ayer
7. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 102
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. ayer
9. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ayer
10. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ayer
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. herī
12. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
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. 1, 85
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ 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. ayer
16. ^ 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. 465
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 508
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 413
19. ^ 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. 214
20. ^ a b c Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 290
21. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. ayer
22. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 115
23. ^ 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. ayer
24. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 205
25. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 126
26. ^ a b Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 576