barrer

Forms

barrer (first-person singular present barro, first-person singular preterite barrí, past participle barrido)^[1] The earliest texts also write the word with ⟨u⟩ for /b/ (uarra, uarrido), but initial b- is already the usual spelling in Old Spanish, in Berceo and in Nebrija.^[2][3][4] Autoridades notes that the Latin source would call for a spelling with v, but keeps b because Covarrubias, Nebrija and the other dictionaries and common use have it.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin verrere (“to sweep”).^[2][6][7][1] The change of the first vowel, ⟨verr-⟩ > ⟨barr-⟩, is explained by Bénaben as a dissimilation of the two vowels.^[8] The same ⟨barr-⟩ appears in Old Catalan barrejar and Old Occitan barrejar “to plunder”, a sense the Latin verb also had, and in modern Catalan the verb means “to mix”.^[2][9]

Outside Spanish the Latin verb survives in Romance only in Portuguese varrer and Galician varrer, beside Old Galician-Portuguese barrejar “to raid, plunder”.^[2][10][11] Basque barraiatu (“to scatter, spread”) was borrowed from Romance.^[2] Catalan has no verb of this kind today, and uses escombrar instead.^[2]

The Latin verb is traced to *wors-o- and further to *wers- (“to wipe, drag on the ground”).^[1] The Oxford Latin Dictionary compares a Greek aorist meaning “swept away” and an Old Church Slavonic verb “to thresh”.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), in a rule on the threshing floor: El sennor ponga la muger que uarra el era “let the lord provide the woman who is to sweep the threshing floor”.^[4][13] Corominas gives Berceo as the first record, and his Breve diccionario dates the word 1220–1250;^[14] Berceo asks that his tomb be swept: la mi sepultura la fagas barrer.^[2][6][14]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century the verb is used of sweeping a floor or a house, as in the Libro de Alexandre, where a man finds his house “swept” bare on his return.^[4][13] Covarrubias in 1611 records the figurative “to carry off everything” (barrer todo lo que hay) and the related llevarlo todo a barrisco.^[15] The Academy listed this figurative sense from 1770, and Autoridades also used the verb for a storm that sweeps away the crops of a field.^[16][17]

Modern senses add the passing of a beam, a camera or the eyes over a space, the wiping out of people or things, and a crushing defeat of an opponent.^[7][18] In Argentina and Cuba the phrase al barrer means “all together, without choosing” (a sale of cattle at one price per head, or a greeting to everyone present); Corominas derives it from the sense “to leave nothing behind”.^[2][19][20] In Mexico, Honduras and Puerto Rico the reflexive barrerse is used of a vehicle that skids, and in several countries of a player who slides to reach the ball.^[21]

Timeline

• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes has the form uarra “should sweep”.^[4]
• c. 1230 – Berceo uses the verb, Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• c. 1250 – the Libro de Apolonio, first record in the Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish.^[22]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin verro and scopo, and lists barreduras, barredor and barrendero.^[23][24]
• 1528 – first record in the Americas, in Nicaragua.^[25]
• 1611 – Covarrubias traces the verb to Latin verro and records llevarlo todo a barrisco.^[15]
• 1726 – Autoridades explains why the word is written with b.^[5]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. verrĕre”.^[26]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To sweep a place clean with a broom (escoba) or something like one: Barre el patio antes de que lleguen.^[7][1]
2. (transitive) To sweep up dirt or rubbish from a place.^[7]
3. (transitive, also intransitive) To clear a place completely of things or people.^[7]
4. (transitive, also intransitive) To put an end to something or someone; to wipe out.^[7]
5. (transitive) To pass an instrument such as a camera or a beam over a space in order to observe or record it; to scan.^[7][18]
6. (transitive) To brush along a surface: El abrigo le barría las baldosas.^[7]
7. (transitive) To search a place thoroughly.^[7]
8. (transitive, also intransitive) To thrash an opponent, to win by a wide margin.^[7]
9. (Mexico, reflexive) Of a horse or mule: to shy sideways when startled.^[7][21]

Word family

• barredero
• barrendero
• barrido
• barredura
• barredor

Related words

• basura
• Latin verrō
• Portuguese varrer

Usage notes

Barrer hacia dentro or barrer para dentro means “to look after one's own interests”.^[7] The Academy listed the proverb yo dueña y vos doncella, ¿quién barrerá la casa? in 1770.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 524
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. barrer
4. ^ 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. barrer
5. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 565
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. barrer
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. barrer
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
9. ^ 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, 676
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ 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. 499
14. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra
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. 1, 284
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 452
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. barrer
18. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial
19. ^ Suárez, Constantino (1921), Vocabulario cubano, La Habana: Librería Cervantes / Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Compañía, p. 52
20. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 104
21. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
22. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 70
23. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 301
24. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv
25. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
26. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 139