bizarro

Forms

bizarro (feminine bizarra, masculine plural bizarros, feminine plural bizarras)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian bizzarro (“irascible, furious; fiery”), a derivative of bizza (“a sudden fit of anger”), which is of uncertain origin and perhaps an expressive creation.^[2][3][4][5] Nocentini derives the Italian noun from an imitative sequence and sees in the ending a Tuscan form of a northern suffix.^[6] The Italian word is in constant use from the 13th century, Dante applying it to a raging spirit, whereas Spanish has it only from the last third of the 16th century: it appears in no medieval author nor in the dictionaries of the 15th and 16th centuries, so Corominas argues that Italian cannot have taken it from Spanish.^[2][7]

The Basque etymology began with Baltasar de Echave, who in 1607 derived the word from Basque bizar (“beard”), explained as “a man with a beard or hair on his chest”;^[8][1] Larramendi took it up, and through Diez it was accepted almost everywhere, in the REW, the FEW and others.^[2] Corominas rejects it: the Basque word means only “beard”, and the dates of the Spanish word exclude it.^[2] Gómez de Silva still gives the Basque origin as probable, and Wiktionary leaves the choice open between Basque bizardun (“bearded”) and the Italian word.^[8][1] The Academy's dictionary gave the Basque etymology in 1884 and the Italian one from 1899.^[9][10]

French bizarre, recorded in 1533 with the sense “strange”, also comes from Italian.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to 1569, and the noun bizarría to the same year.^[2][3] The earliest sense is “brave, daring”, which he cites from Ercilla; the senses “elegant” and “generous” followed.^[2][3] A sporadic earlier use in the translation of the Divine Comedy attributed to Enrique de Villena shows, according to J. A. Pascual, only that the translator did not understand it.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Italian the word went from “irascible” to “fiery, spirited” and “lively, sharp”, and these gave the Spanish senses.^[2] In the classical authors it is a word of fashion with vague senses of praise: besides “brave” it means “elegant” (the Quijote, Lope's Fuenteovejuna), “handsome” (Quevedo), “gallant”, “generous” and “courteous” (Guzmán de Alfarache), all, Corominas thinks, from the idea “brave”, as with bravo.^[2] In Bogotá in 1577 women go about muy biçarras “very finely dressed”.^[11] Percyvall (1591) glosses it “brave, gallant”, and Autoridades (1726) “generous, spirited, gallant” and “splendid, finely adorned”.^[12][13] Terreros notes that some took it for “ostentatious, arrogant”.^[14] In French, Brantôme's sense “brave” may come from Spanish.^[2]

From the sense “irascible” Italian also reached the sense now usual there, “strange, odd”, with which the word passed into French;^[6] Nocentini adds German and English.^[2][6] Moliner notes that Spanish uses the word mostly of soldiers, often humorously and meaning rather “dashing”, and that the press sometimes gives it the French sense “extravagant, surprising”.^[15] This sense “bizarre, strange” is a semantic loan, from English according to Wiktionary and the Puerto Rican Tesoro, from French according to Wikcionario.^[1][16][17] The 2001 DRAE did not have it; the DLE now lists it as its third sense, and the DAMER records it of things in Puerto Rico, Chile and Argentina.^[18][4][19] In Venezuela the word means “low, despicable”.^[19]

Timeline

• 1569 – first record, in the sense “brave”; the noun bizarría appears the same year.^[2][3]
• 1577 – the first record from the Americas, in Bogotá.^[11]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it “brave, gallant”.^[12]
• 1607 – Baltasar de Echave first proposes a Basque origin.^[2]
• 1726 – Autoridades defines it as “generous, spirited, gallant” and “splendid”.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Basque.^[9]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Italian.^[10]
• 1917 – Alemany also records bizarro as the name of a dance of Granada.^[20]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Brave, valiant (valiente), dashing: Desfiló un bizarro capitán de caballería.^[4][1][15]
2. Generous, splendid, lavish.^[4][1]
3. (colloquial) Strange, extravagant, out of the ordinary; bizarre: Fue una noche muy bizarra.^[4][1][19]
4. (Venezuela) Low, despicable.^[19]

Word family

• bizarría
• bizarrear

Related words

• bravo
• Italian bizzarro
• French bizarre

Usage notes

Alemany (1917) also records bizarro as a noun, the name of a dance from Granada with the measure and steps of the fandango.^[20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 595
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bizarro
4. ^ 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. bizarro
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. bizarro
6. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
7. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. bizzarro
8. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies)
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 79
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 612
14. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 249
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
16. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. bizarro
17. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
18. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. bizarro
19. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
20. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 254