beso

Forms

beso m (plural besos, diminutive besito, augmentative besote)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish beso, inherited from Latin bāsium (“kiss”).^[2][3][4][1] Wiktionary gives *baisu as the intermediate form.^[1] Corominas calls it a word of familiar speech, and notes that it is shared by all the Romance languages.^[2][3] Coromines traces the Catalan word through a stage still kept in bais to bes.^[5]

The same Latin word gave Portuguese beijo, Galician beixo, Italian bacio and Sardinian basu.^[6][7][1] The REW notes that French lacks it, without a clear reason;^[7][8] French uses the verb baiser as its noun.^[7][8]

The Latin word is first found in Catullus, who seems to have brought it into the written language.^[9][8] De Vaan takes the late date as a sign of a loanword, perhaps Celtic since Catullus came from Verona, and the DLE calls it a word of Celtic origin.^[9][4] De Vaan also points out that many languages have a word for “kiss” made of a syllable *bu- and a sibilant, such as Lithuanian bučiúoti (“to kiss”), German Buss and English buss, and thinks the Latin word probably has the same imitative source.^[9] At first it had an erotic sense that ōsculum lacked; in Imperial Latin it became the general word for a kiss.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to Berceo.^[2][3] In his Del sacrificio de la misa (1228–1246, in an early 14th-century copy) the kiss of the altar in the Mass stands for the kiss that Judas gave Christ: El beso del altar signífica el beso que dio a don Christo Judas.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

The Tentative Dictionary sorts the Old Spanish uses into a kiss of respect (on the altar, on the hand), a kiss of greeting, such as Judas's, and a kiss of passion, as in the Libro de buen amor.^[12] In the law of the 13th century the kiss given at a betrothal had legal effect: the Fuero Juzgo and the Siete Partidas deal with the bride's rights once the kiss had been given.^[11][13] Gaspar y Roig still described this beso esponsalicio in 1853.^[14] Nebrija's dictionaries kept the Latin distinction: an honest kiss was osculum, a lover's kiss basium or suavium.^[15][16]

The Diccionario de Autoridades in 1726 defined the word as touching something with the lips, and recorded beso de paz “kiss of peace” and beso de Judas for a feigned and treacherous kiss.^[17] It also reported Covarrubias's derivation from Hebrew and preferred the Latin one.^[17] The Academy's edition of 1770 added a transferred sense, the violent knock of two people's faces or heads, or of two things, against each other.^[18] Today the DLE also gives the symbolic gesture of a kiss.^[4] In Mexico the word names a small sweet of ground walnuts and sugar, and in western Venezuela a coconut pastry.^[19] Tagalog borrowed the word as beso.^[1]

Timeline

• 1228–1246 – Berceo's Del sacrificio de la misa uses beso for the kiss of the altar (in an early 14th-century copy).^[11][2]
• c. 1250–1260 – the Fuero Juzgo has the betrothal kiss, el beso dado.^[11]
• 1256–1263 – the Siete Partidas speak of the kiss the bridegroom receives.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija distinguishes the honest kiss, osculum, from the lover's kiss.^[15]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[20]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records beso de paz and beso de Judas.^[17]
• 1770 – the Academy adds the sense of a violent knock between two heads or two things.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. A kiss: the act of touching someone or something with the lips, as a sign of love, greeting or respect: Le dio un beso en la mejilla al despedirse.^[4][1]
2. A symbolic gesture of a kiss, made without touching: Desde el andén nos lanzó un beso con la mano.^[4][21]
3. (colloquial) The knock two things give each other when they bump.^[4]
4. (colloquial) A violent blow two people give each other in the face or the head when they collide.^[4]
5. (Mexico) A small sweet made of ground walnuts and sugar.^[19]

Word family

• besito
• besote

Related words

• besar
• ósculo
• Latin bāsium
• Portuguese beijo
• French baiser

Usage notes

Set phrases include beso de Judas, a kiss or other show of affection that hides a betrayal, and beso de paz, a kiss given as a sign of affection and friendship.^[4] Comerse a besos a alguien means to cover someone with kisses.^[22] In the Canary Islands beso, usually in the plural, is a variant of bezo “lip”, recorded from the 19th century.^[23] The REW does not connect bezo with the Latin word.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 575
3. ^ a b c 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 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. beso
5. ^ 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. 5, 579
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. basium
7. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. basium
8. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. baiser
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. beso
11. ^ 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. beso
12. ^ a b 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 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
14. ^ 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, 363
15. ^ a b 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, p. s.v. beso
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 303
17. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 599
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 479
19. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. beso
20. ^ 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. beso
21. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. beso
22. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. beso
23. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. beso