brillar

Forms

brillar (first-person singular present brillo, first-person singular preterite brillé, past participle brillado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian brillare (“to whirl, to quiver; to shine”), a poetic Italianism that came into Spanish in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.^[2][3][4][1] Corominas notes that it is still missing from the dictionaries of Nebrija, Alonso de Palencia, Percyvall, Oudin and Covarrubias, and that at the end of the 16th century Cristóbal de las Casas gives the Italian verb only with the sense “to leap for joy”.^[2]

The REW took “to leap for joy” as the step from the Italian sense “to whirl, quiver” to “to shine”.^[2] Corominas thinks rather of the trembling twinkle of the stars, and compares rielar “to shimmer”, from rehilar “to quiver”.^[2] He and Nocentini take the Italian word as an expressive formation, Nocentini from a sound sequence ⟨bril-⟩ or ⟨pril-⟩ that suggests a rapid, flickering movement, like that of a wing or a ray of light.^[2][5] The older derivation from Latin beryllus (“beryl”), “to shine like a beryl”, is still given by Gómez de Silva and Bénaben, and García de Diego posits a verb Vulgar Latin *beryllare.^[6][7][8] Corominas rejects it, following Schuchardt, and Nocentini finds that it cannot account for the range of senses of the Italian verb.^[2][5]

French briller also comes from Italian, while Portuguese brilhar and perhaps Catalan brillar were taken through Spanish.^[2][5] In Galicia the Castilian form competes with Galician brilar, the form Castelao uses.^[2] The noun brillo, unknown in Italian, was formed in Spanish in the 17th century;^[9] Tirso de Molina counted it among the words of the Gongorist poets.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Corpus del Diccionario histórico has the verb in 1549, in Jerónimo de Urrea's translation of Ariosto's Orlando furioso, in a description of a light at sea: Viendo la bella luz cómo brillaba “seeing how the fair light shone”.^[10] Corominas knew an earlier example in Urrea but found it doubtful because its sense is unclear, and dated the word from Suárez de Figueroa (1617) and Villegas (1618).^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the late 16th century the verb belonged to the poets: the corpus has it in Fray Luis de León, Góngora and Malón de Chaide, where roses, gold spurs and jewels “shine”.^[10] Corominas notes that it soon spread and was used in prose by 1644.^[2] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it in 1726 as “to shine, glitter and send out rays of light, like the stars and diamonds struck by light”, with Latin micare as its equivalent.^[11] The figurative sense “to stand out in talent or gifts” appears in the Academy's dictionary of 1843.^[9] In 1899 the Academy derived the verb from brillo, a view it has since given up for the Italian etymology.^[12][4]

Moliner records the set phrases brillar por su ausencia “to be conspicuous by one's absence” and brillar con luz propia “to shine in one's own right”.^[13][1] In the Americas the verb has taken transitive senses: “to polish, make shiny” in Colombia, “to clean and shine shoes” in Puerto Rico; in the Dominican Republic it also means “to play truant”.^[14][15][16]

Timeline

• 1549 – Jerónimo de Urrea uses brillaba in his translation of Orlando furioso.^[10]
• c. 1558–1580 – Fray Luis de León compares a bride to a shining rose.^[10]
• 1617 – Suárez de Figueroa: the DCECH's first record, beside the adjective brillante.^[2][3]
• 1636 – first record in the Americas, from Potosí, of a stone that “shines somewhat darkly”.^[17]
• 1644 – the verb appears in prose.^[2]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as shining like the stars and diamonds.^[11]
• 1786 – Terreros gives the French, Latin and Italian equivalents briller, fulgere and brillare.^[18]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the figurative sense “to excel in talents and gifts”.^[9]
• 1899 – the Academy derives the verb from brillo.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To shine, to give off or reflect light; to sparkle or glitter: Las luces del puerto brillaban sobre el agua.^[4][1]
2. (intransitive, figurative) Of a person: to excel, stand out for talent, beauty or another quality: Su hermana brillaba en matemáticas.^[4][13]
3. (transitive, Colombia) To polish, make shiny.^[14]
4. (transitive, Puerto Rico) To clean and shine (shoes).^[14][15]
5. (intransitive, Dominican Republic) To play truant, to skip school or work.^[14][16]

Word family

• brillante
• brillo

Related words

• Italian brillare
• French briller
• Portuguese brilhar

Usage notes

Brillar por su ausencia “to be conspicuous by one's absence” is a common set phrase.^[13][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 665
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. brillar
4. ^ a b c d 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. brillar
5. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. brillare
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. brillar
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. brillar
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. brillar
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 113
10. ^ 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. brillar
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 683
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 155
13. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. brillar
14. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. brillar
15. ^ 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. brillar
16. ^ a b 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. brillar
17. ^ 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. brillar
18. ^ 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, 274