besar

Forms

besar (first-person singular present beso, first-person singular preterite besé, past participle besado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish besar, inherited from Latin bāsiāre (“to kiss”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from bāsium (“kiss”), the source of beso.^[5][1][2]

The same verb is Portuguese beijar, Catalan besar, Occitan baizar, French baiser and Italian baciare.^[6][7]

bāsium first appears in Catullus.^[8] De Vaan thinks this late record makes a loanword likely, perhaps from Celtic, since Catullus was from Verona.^[8] He notes that the word first had an erotic tone that ōsculum lacked, and became the general word for “kiss” in Imperial Latin.^[8] Many languages have kiss words of the shape *bu- with a sibilant, such as English buss, so it was probably onomatopoeic.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where Rachel and Vidas al Cid besáronle las manos “kissed the Cid's hands”.^[2][9][10] Corominas also cites a form of the verb in a Mozarabic kharja of the 11th or 12th century.^[2][11]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish one kissed hands, feet or mouth, and kissing the ground was a sign of vassalage in the Cid.^[12] Alfonso X's Partidas use the verb of kissing the dead.^[13] From 1884 the Academy defined the kiss as a sign of love, friendship or reverence.^[13][14] The formula besar las manos of letters reached the Americas: a 1509 document from Santo Domingo has the governor besaba las manos de su merced.^[15]

Autoridades recorded besar el azote “to kiss the whip”, to admit that a punishment was deserved, from schoolmasters who made boys kiss it, and besar el pie for the homage paid to the Pope.^[16] Covarrubias thought the name was taken from the Hebrews.^[17] The Academy's 1770 volume recorded the figurative use of inanimate things that touch, and its 1843 edition the reflexive “to bump heads by accident”.^[18][19] The DLE now adds a car that lightly grazes another.^[4]

In Guatemala besar la cruz is to swear with a cross made by the fingers on the lips, and in Chile besar las botas is to flatter servilely.^[20]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – besáronle las manos in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[2][9]
• c. 1230 – Berceo: solo que yo pudiesse la tu mano besar.^[10][21]
• 1220–1250 – first record of the noun beso.^[3]
• 1256–1300 – Alfonso X's Partidas use the verb of kissing the dead.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin osculor.^[22]
• 1509 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[15]
• 1607 – first record of besucar.^[3]
• 1611 – first record of besamanos.^[3]
• 1726 – Autoridades records besar el azote.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To kiss: to touch or press someone or something with the lips as a sign of love, desire or reverence, or as a greeting: La besó en la frente al despedirse.^[4][1]
2. (reciprocal) To kiss each other: Los novios se besaron.^[1][23]
3. (transitive) To make the gesture of kissing without touching with the lips.^[4]
4. (transitive, literary) Of a thing: to touch another: Las olas besan la arena.^[4][24]
5. (transitive, colloquial) Of a vehicle or its driver: to graze something or another vehicle.^[4]
6. (transitive, colloquial) To bump into someone or something, hitting one's face or head.^[4]

Word family

• besamanos
• besapiés
• besucar
• besuquear
• besalamano

Related words

• beso
• Latin bāsium
• Portuguese beijar
• Italian baciare
• French baiser

Usage notes

Set phrases with the verb include besar el suelo, besar la tierra and llegar y besar el santo.^[1] Autoridades records besar el azote and besar el pie.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 575
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. beso
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. besar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
8. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ 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. besar
10. ^ 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. 518
11. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. besar
12. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 75
13. ^ a b c 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. besar
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 148
15. ^ a b 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. besar
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 598
17. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 303
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 479
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 99
20. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. besar
21. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. s.v. besar
22. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 303
23. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. besar
24. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. besar