bañar

Forms

bañar (first-person singular present baño, first-person singular preterite bañé, past participle bañado)^[1] Old Spanish wrote it bannar and, in eastern texts, banyar.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin balneāre (“to bathe”), derived from Latin balneum (“bath”).^[4][5][6][7] Like all the Romance forms, it rests on a Vulgar Latin form without /l/, *baneare, from *baneum, which simplified the awkward consonant cluster; the form without /l/ is found in an inscription at Pompeii.^[4][1] The classical form survived only in place names such as ⟨Boñar⟩ and ⟨Albuniel⟩.^[4]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese banhar, Catalan banyar, French baigner and Italian bagnare.^[8][1] The French verb owes its vowel to bain.^[8][9]

The Latin noun was taken from Ancient Greek βαλανεῖον (balaneîon, “bath”), early enough for the second /a/ to be reduced and lost.^[1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the verb to the end of the 12th century, in the Libre dels tres reys d'Orient.^[4][5] The CDH's earliest hit is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), where Pharaoh's daughter goes down a bannarse en el rio “to bathe in the river” and finds the ark.^[3][2] The sense was immersing the body in water to wash.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Thirteenth-century texts use it for bathing in rivers and public baths: the Fuero de Brihuega fines men who enter the baths on the women's days, and the Moamín tells falconers to dip their hawks in cold water.^[3] Alfonso X's history already has the figurative bannada de lagrimas “bathed in tears”.^[12] The Quijote uses it for rivers whose waters bathe the land and for faces bathed in blood and hands in tears.^[13]

Autoridades in 1726 recorded the extended senses “to wet and water”, of rivers and the sea that touch a region or a city's walls, and “to cover one thing with another”, as sweets with sugar.^[14] The Academy's dictionary has since added the light or sun that floods a place, and terms of shoemaking and painting.^[6] In much of Latin America bañar is also used for taking a shower.^[15] The phrase ¡vete a bañar! “go and take a bath!”, is a dismissive “get lost!” in Argentina, Cuba, Mexico and Uruguay.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Libre dels tres reys d'Orient and the Fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[4][3]
• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre: the king takes pleasure in bathing in a river.^[3][11]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's history has bannada de lagrimas.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin balneo.^[16]
• 1541 – first record in the Americas, in Michoacán, for copper plating.^[17]
• 1726 – Autoridades records the senses “to water” and “to coat”.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also reflexive) To bathe: to put someone in water or another liquid to wash, cool down or for health: Bañamos al perro en el patio.^[6][1]
2. (transitive) To dip or immerse something in a liquid.^[6][1]
3. (transitive) Of water: to wet or touch something.^[6]
4. (transitive) Of the sea, a river, etc.: to wash the shores of a place: El Ebro baña la ciudad.^[6][14]
5. (transitive) To coat something with a layer of another substance by dipping or spreading: pasteles bañados en chocolate.^[6]
6. (transitive) Of the sun, light or air: to fall fully on something.^[6]
7. (painting) To apply a transparent coat of colour over another.^[6]
8. (Latin America) To give someone a shower;^[15] (reflexive) to take a shower.^[15]

Word family

• bañador
• bañista
• bañado

Related words

• bañera
• baño
• balneario
• Latin balneum
• Portuguese banhar

Usage notes

¡Vete a bañar! is a colloquial way of telling someone to go away in Argentina, Cuba, Mexico and Uruguay.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. bañar
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. bañar
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 491
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. baño
6. ^ 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. bañar
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 109
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. balneare
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. baigner
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. balneum
11. ^ a b 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. 490
12. ^ 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. bañar
13. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 165
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 547
15. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. bañar
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 301
17. ^ 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. bañar