bestial

Forms

bestial m or f (masculine and feminine plural bestiales)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin bēstiālis (“of beasts”), a word of Church Latin, taken as a learned word.^[2][3][1] In Latin the adjective is formed from Latin bēstia + -ālis, and the Spanish adjective sits beside bestia “beast” as an adjective of the same pair.^[1][4] The Latin noun has no certain etymology; de Vaan compares bēlua (“beast, monster”).^[5][6] Wiktionary mentions a proposed Proto-Indo-European *dʰwēstiā, from the root *dʰwes- (“to breathe”), but notes that an initial ⟨f-⟩ would then be expected in Latin.^[1]

That noun is itself a semi-learned word in Spanish, preceded by the more popular form vistia in the Glosas Silenses; the popular descendants of the Latin noun include bicha and Portuguese bicho.^[2][7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first records are of about 1250: the Poridat de las poridades warns that by satisfying all his desires a man falls into a natura bestial, a nature that covets without reason, and the Aragonese Vidal Mayor speaks of a cubdicia bestial, a beastly greed.^[9] DEMel's first primary record is in the Bocados de oro of the same date.^[10] Alonso's dictionary quotes a legal text of Alfonso X with ganado bestial, livestock of beasts of burden.^[11]

Semantic evolution

From the start the adjective meant both “of beasts” and “like a beast, without reason”, mostly of appetites and desires.^[11][9] As a noun it named a head of cattle or a beast of burden: the Poema de José (c. 1370) speaks of vuestros bestiales i las vacas.^[9] The Academy's dictionary of 1770 records this noun as Aragonese, quoting the Ordinances of the community of Daroca.^[12] Later editions labelled it provincial, and the DLE now marks it obsolete.^[13][3]

Autoridades (1726) gave the literal sense “belonging to beasts” and the figurative one, of what is foreign to reason and ruled by the passions.^[14] In colloquial modern Spanish bestial also means enormous or extraordinary, and the 2001 edition of the Academy's dictionary already has this sense.^[15][16] VOX also records an adverbial use, “very well”.^[17] In Puerto Rico it means “extraordinary, marvellous”.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – first records, in the Poridat de las poridades, the Vidal Mayor and the Bocados de oro.^[9][10]
• c. 1370 – the Poema de José uses bestiales as a noun for livestock.^[9]
• 1438 – the BDELC's date for the word.^[19]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin bestius and bestialis.^[20]
• 1532 – first record in the Americas, gente tan bestial in Mexico.^[21]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the literal and the figurative sense.^[14]
• 1770 – the Academy records the noun as Aragonese, for a head of cattle.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin bestialis.^[22]

Meanings

Adjective

1. brutal, irrational; more proper to a beast than to a human being: una furia bestial.^[3][16][1]
2. (colloquial) Enormous, extraordinary; great or excellent: Esta mañana tenía un frío bestial.^[3][16][1]

Adverb

1. (colloquial) Very well, splendidly: Lo pasamos bestial en la boda.^[17]

Noun

1. (obsolete) A head of cattle, a mule, horse or donkey.^[3][12]

Word family

• bestialmente

Related words

• bestia
• bestialidad
• Latin bēstia

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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 e 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. bestial
4. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 79
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. bestial
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 517
9. ^ 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. bestial
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. bestial
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. 518
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 480
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 100
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 600
15. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. bestial
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bestial
17. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. bestial
18. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. bestial
19. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bestia
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 303
21. ^ 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. bestial
22. ^ 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