caer

Forms

caer (first-person singular present caigo, first-person singular preterite caí, past participle caído)^[1] Old Spanish had forms with ⟨d⟩ beside caer and cayer: kaderat “will fall” in the Glosas Emilianenses, cadie, cadioli and cadré, and a future cadrás.^[2][3][4][5] The old present subjunctive was caya, later replaced by caiga.^[6][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish caer, inherited from Late Latin cadēre, a Late Latin remodelling of Latin cadō (“to fall”).^[2][7][8][1] DÉRom reconstructs both the classical stress, */ˈkadere/, and a form stressed on the ending, */kaˈdere/.^[9] The intervocalic /d/, still written in the oldest texts, was later lost.^[2][3]

The word is common to all the Romance languages:^[2] Portuguese cair, Galician caer, Asturian cayer, Catalan caure (old caér), Old Occitan cazer, Old French chaeir, French choir, Italian cadere and Romanian cădea.^[2][10][11] In French it has largely given way to tomber.^[11][12]

The classical verb goes back to Proto-Italic *kadō and Proto-Indo-European *ḱad- (“to fall”);^[1][13] the OLD compares Sanskrit and Oscan words.^[14] This verb has given Spanish many learned words, such as accidente, cadencia and ocaso.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the future kaderat “will fall” in the Glosas Emilianenses of the mid-10th century.^[2][7] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) uses the verb for falling into the sea, for falling at someone's feet, and for a share that falls to each man: a cada vno dellos caen c. marchos “a hundred marks fall to each of them”.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish already used caer for “to be situated”, “to fall to one's lot” and, in phrases such as non vos caya en pesar “may it not grieve you”, for what befalls someone; the modern caer en gracia continues that construction.^[4] A special old sense was “to lose a lawsuit”.^[2] Alfonso X uses it for hair falling out, for falling into danger and for cities falling in an earthquake.^[15]

Covarrubias (1611) records caer enfermo “to fall ill”, the setting of the sun and falls from favour.^[16] In the Quijote caer en la cuenta means “to realise”.^[17] Salvá (1846) notes a transitive use, “to knock down”, among common people of Old Castile and Extremadura, still heard in Andalusia.^[18][19]

In the Americas caer also means “to drop in, visit”, “to turn up”, “to chip in money” and “to fall asleep”, and in Mexico and Paraguay “to please”.^[20] In Argentina and Uruguay it means “to arrive, come”.^[21]

Timeline

• mid-10th century – kaderat in the Glosas Emilianenses.^[2][7]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy).^[4][5]
• c. 1140 – the derivative acaecer “to happen”.^[7]
• 1220–1250 – decaer.^[7]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it of hair falling out.^[15]
• 1495 – recaer and recaída.^[7]
• 1520 – the first record from the Americas, in Cuba: cayó malo de una calentura.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records caer enfermo.^[16]
• 1729 – Autoridades notes the old subjunctive cayan for caigan.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, also reflexive) To fall, move downwards by its own weight.^[8][1]
2. (intransitive, also reflexive) To hang down: La falda le cae hasta los tobillos.^[8]
3. (intransitive, also reflexive) To lose one's balance and fall to the ground.^[8][1]
4. (intransitive, also reflexive) To come off or drop from where it was attached: Se le cae el pelo.^[8][1]
5. (intransitive) To fall into a trap or deception: caer en el engaño.^[8][1]
6. (intransitive) To fall into misfortune, error or danger.^[8]
7. (intransitive) To collapse, come to an end; to fall from power: Cayó el gobierno.^[8][1]
8. (intransitive) To understand, realise: caer en la cuenta.^[8][1]
9. (intransitive) To diminish, weaken; of a colour, to fade.^[8]
10. (intransitive) To fall on a date: Mi cumpleaños cae en domingo.^[1][23]
11. (Latin America, colloquial) To drop in on someone, turn up.^[20]

Word family

• caída
• caído
• caedizo
• caimiento
• acaecer
• decaer
• recaer
• recaída
• dejar caer
• caer en la cuenta

Related words

• cadente
• cascada
• cayente
• escaecer
• cadencia
• decadencia
• cadáver
• caso
• accidente
• ocaso
• occidente
• Latin cadō
• Portuguese cair

Usage notes

Caer bien and caer mal mean “to suit” or “to be liked, disliked”: Ese chico me cae bien.^[1][24] The transitive use “to drop” (caí el vaso) is regional and nonstandard.^[1][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 734
3. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 89
4. ^ a b c d e Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 110
5. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. caer
6. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 44
7. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. caer
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. caer
9. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom, p. s.v. */ˈkad-e-/
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 1224
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1451
12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. choir
13. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 133
14. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. cadō
15. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. caer
16. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 376
17. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 226
18. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 187
19. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 111
20. ^ 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. caer
21. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 185
22. ^ 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. caer
23. ^ Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 438
24. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. caer