cadáver

Forms

cadáver m (plural cadáveres)^[1]

Etymology

It is a learned word, borrowed from Latin cadāver (“corpse”).^[2][3][1][4] The popular outcome of the same word is the Castilian calabre “corpse”, with Old Spanish cabre and the Asturian cadarma, the last from the Latin neuter plural.^[4] The REW gives the Spanish word the sense “stench”, and Corominas derives Old Spanish calabrina “corpse, stench” from the Latin derivative cadāverīna, influenced by calavera.^[5][6] García de Diego took the word for “skull” itself from the plural of the Latin word, but Corominas rejects this for calvāria (“skull”).^[7]

Elsewhere the Latin word survives only in learned forms: Portuguese cadáver, Catalan cadàver, French cadavre and Italian cadavere.^{[8][9][10][11]} In Catalan the older, more popular form was calabre, and the learned form made its way into speech only slowly.^[10][10]

The Latin noun was linked by the ancients to cadō (“to fall”), as “the fallen one”.^[1][12][13] Its ending is obscure; the OLD compares papāver (“poppy”).^[13][8] Wiktionary reports that de Vaan accepts this derivation tentatively, as an old perfect participle.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hits are Bible translations of about 1400, with the plural cadaueres: Et desçendieron las aues sobre los cadaueres “and the birds came down upon the carcasses”, in a manuscript of the turn of the 15th century.^[14][15] Corominas dates the word from 1438, the Corbacho of the Archpriest of Talavera, where the body is left cadáver once the soul has gone.^[2][14] A 1293 hit under this lemma is calabre, the name of a siege engine, not the word for a corpse.^[14]

Semantic evolution

Juan de Mena explained the new word in about 1439: quedó fecho cadáver, que quiere dezir cuerpo muerto “he was made a cadáver, which means a dead body”.^[14][16] In 1490 Alfonso de Palencia explained it by caer “to fall” and by the phrase “flesh given to the worms”, the folk etymology that Wiktionary traces to the medieval Schoolmen.^[16][1] By the 19th century it was also used figuratively of a person close to death or with a deathly look.^[17] Moliner notes that in ordinary use it refers to human bodies, and that it can be used hyperbolically of a very emaciated person.^[18] In Mexico caerse cadáver is colloquial for “to pay the bill”.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – Bible translations have the plural cadaueres.^[14][15]
• 1438 – the Corbacho uses cadáver, Corominas's first record.^[2][14]
• c. 1439 – Juan de Mena glosses it as “dead body”.^[14][16]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia gives a folk etymology for it.^[16]
• 1672 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City.^[19]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives its Latin etymon.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dead body; a corpse, cadaver.^[3][1]
2. (hyperbolic) A very emaciated person.^[18][17]

Word family

• cadavérico

Related words

• calabre
• calabrina
• caer
• Latin cadāver

Usage notes

The phrase depósito de cadáveres means a morgue.^[3] Moliner points out that for a dead animal one usually says el cuerpo rather than el cadáver.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cadáver
3. ^ 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. cadáver
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cadaver
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. cadaver
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. calavera
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 757
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. cadavre
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 629
10. ^ a b c 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, 381
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 92
12. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cadáver
15. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cadáver
16. ^ a b c d 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. 577
17. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 308
18. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cadáver
19. ^ 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. cadáver
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 170