bregar

Forms

bregar (first-person singular present brego, first-person singular preterite bregué, past participle bregado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐌹𐌺𐌰𐌽 (brikan, “to break”), perhaps through Catalan or Occitan.^[2][3][4][1] The Gothic verb also meant “to fight, struggle”.^[5][6] It continues Proto-Germanic *brekaną (“to break”), the source of English break and German brechen, from Proto-Indo-European *bʰreg- (“to break”);^[7][8][1] Kroonen considers it possibly the same word as Latin frangō (“I break”).^[7][8][1]

Corominas sees no need to derive the sense “to knead” from Latin plicō (“to fold”), as the Academy's historical dictionary did, and compares Catalan bregar (“to rub hard”) and Old Occitan “to crumple”.^[2] Alonso and Moliner still give the kneading verb that Latin origin, and Moliner gives it a numbered headword of its own.^[9][10] Gamillscheg, whom Corominas thinks may be right, took the intransitive senses “to quarrel, struggle” from the noun brega, which would itself be an Occitanism.^[2] The Catalan verb meant first “to break”, then “to beat hemp or flax”, and its noun brega (“quarrel”) is recorded from 1310.^[11][12] Prat Sabater counts the Spanish verb among the Catalan loans.^[13]

The Academy's dictionaries of 1884 and 1899 derived it from Medieval Latin brigare (“to quarrel”).^[14][15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is first recorded in 1423, in Enrique de Villena's Arte cisoria, in the sense “to knead”: a loaf must be duro e bregado, firm and well worked, without holes.^[9][2][3] The noun brega “quarrel, strife” is older: the CDH finds it in 1305, in a letter of the Sacristan of Tarazona to James II, and in the Aragonese Juan Fernández de Heredia in the second half of the 14th century.^[16][2]

Semantic evolution

The intransitive senses “to quarrel, struggle, strive” are recorded from 1555; the Pícara Justina (1605) also has a transitive use, “to beat”.^[2] Autoridades (1726) defined the verb as to fight and quarrel by force, and by analogy to do something with toil, and recorded the proverb arco que mucho brega, o él o la cuerda, “a bow that works too hard breaks, either it or its string”.^[17] The kneading sense came into the Academy's dictionary in 1817, for working dough with a roller fixed to the table on which the baker sits.^[18] The 1884 edition added “to bustle, toil”.^[14] A variant briega spread in Andalusia and Murcia.^[2]

In bullfighting the verb means to work the bull with the cape.^[19] In the Canaries it is used of competing in Canarian wrestling.^[20] In Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic it means to work, to deal with something or help someone, and also, euphemistically, to have sex; in Venezuela it means to court someone.^[21][22][23]

Timeline

• 1305 – the noun brega in a letter from Tarazona.^[16]
• 1310 – Catalan brega “quarrel”.^[11]
• Second half of the 14th century – brega in Juan Fernández de Heredia.^[2]
• 1423 – bregar “to knead”, in Villena's Arte cisoria.^[9][2][3]
• 1555 – the intransitive sense “to quarrel, strive”.^[2]
• 1618 – first record in the Americas, of a ship struggling against wind and current.^[24]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades.^[17]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds the kneading sense.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To knead (amasar) bread dough in a particular way.^[4]
2. (intransitive) To struggle, quarrel or wrestle with others.^[4][1]
3. (intransitive) To bustle about, toil: Brega todo el día en el taller.^[4][10][1]
4. (intransitive) To battle against risks, hardships or difficulties to overcome them.^[4]
5. (bullfighting) To work the bull with the cape.^[19]
6. (Puerto Rico) To deal with something; to help someone.^[21][22][1]

Word family

• brega

Related words

• brecha
• Gothic 𐌱𐍂𐌹𐌺𐌰𐌽 (brikan)

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 659
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bregar
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. bregar
5. ^ Feist, Sigmund (1939), Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache, 3rd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 76
6. ^ Lehmann, Winfred P. (1986), A Gothic Etymological Dictionary, based on the third edition of Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache by Sigmund Feist, Leiden: Brill, p. 108
7. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 75
8. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 55
9. ^ a b c 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. 549
10. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bregar
11. ^ a b 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. 2, 211
12. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. bregar
13. ^ Prat Sabater, Marta (2003), Préstamos del catalán en el léxico español, doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, p. 333
14. ^ 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), p. 167
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 154
16. ^ 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. bregar
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 679
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 143
19. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. bregar
20. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. bregar
21. ^ 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. bregar
22. ^ a b Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. bregar
23. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. bregar
24. ^ 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. bregar