cambiar

Forms

cambiar (first-person singular present cambio, first-person singular preterite cambié, past participle cambiado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish cambiar, inherited from Late Latin cambiāre (“to exchange”), a word of Gaulish origin.^[2][3][1][4] The verb is rare and late in Latin: the OLD cites Siculus Flaccus and Apuleius, and Wiktionary dates the first-conjugation form to the 5th century, with an earlier fourth-conjugation form.^[5][1][6]

The native Old Spanish form was camear or camiar, with the /mb/ reduced, as in the Cantar de mio Cid and the prose of Alfonso X.^{[7][8][9][10]} Wiktionary suggests that the Spanish verb kept its /mb/ because it came through cambiar, cambiar or cambiar, where the group is kept.^[1]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese cambiar, Catalan canviar, Italian cambiare and French changer.^[7][11][12] Coromines finds the Catalan ⟨camiar⟩ in half-Latin documents from 903.^[12]

Wiktionary derives the Latin verb from cambium (“exchange”), from Gaulish cambion, a derivative of Proto-Celtic *kambos (“twisted, crooked”);^[1] Niermeyer instead derives the noun from the verb.^[13] Gómez de Silva and Cunha also connect the word with a Celtic root for “curved”, the implied sense being “turn, return”.^[4][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The BDELC dates the verb and the noun cambio to 1068.^[2] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) has the form camear: the Cid holds two swords in his hands and „no·s' le pueden camear, ca el Cid bien las coñosce” “they cannot be swapped on him, for the Cid knows them well”.^[8] In La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200) whoever „conprava la eredat o la camiava” “bought the inheritance or exchanged it” gave his shoe as a sign.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In the prose of Alfonso X camiar means “to give or take one thing for another”, “to change, alter” (of a colour), “to vomit” and “to move from one place to another”.^[9] Berceo already uses cambiar for “to change” (cambiólo ayna Dios en meior estado “God soon changed it to a better state”).^[14] Nebrija renders it with Latin commuto and permuto.^[15] Autoridades has “to exchange”, “to change, vary” and “to deal in money exchange”.^[16]

The Academy's dictionary of 1817 adds the riding sense “to make a horse change its lead”,^[17] and the 1869 edition the nautical senses and the wind changing direction.^[18] The reflexive also means “to move house”;^[1] in Puerto Rico cambiar is also to jerk a kite's string so that it circles.^[19] Popular American speech has the form cambear.^[20] The DLE adds “to change a baby's nappy” and “to change gear”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1068 – the first record of cambiar and cambio.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has the form camear.^[8]
• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar has camiava.^[8]
• c. 1230 – Berceo uses cambiar for “to change”.^[14]
• 1250–1279 – the Lapidario of Alfonso X has camiar in four senses.^[9]
• 1456 – Cartagena's Doctrinal has cambiado “exchanged”.^[14]
• 1513 – Nebrija glosses the verb with Latin commuto and permuto.^[15]
• 1551 – the first record from the Americas, in Puebla.^[21]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. cambire”.^[22]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, intransitive, also with de) To change, switch; to leave one thing or situation for another: Cambió de trabajo el año pasado.^[3][1]
2. (transitive) To turn something into something else, often its opposite.^[3]
3. (transitive) To exchange, swap; to change money: Cambié unos libros viejos por discos.^[3][1]
4. (transitive) To exchange glances, words or ideas: Se cambiaron una mirada de complicidad.^[3]
5. (transitive) To move something to another place.^[3]
6. (transitive) To change a baby's nappy.^[3]
7. (intransitive, also reflexive) Of a person, to change in looks or character: Desde la boda ha cambiado bastante.^[3]
8. (intransitive) Of the weather or the wind, to change.^[3]
9. (intransitive) To change gear.^[3]
10. (nautical) To brace the yards round to the other tack; to tack.^[3]
11. (reflexive) To change one's clothes.^[3]
12. (reflexive) To move house.^[1]

Word family

• cambio
• cambiante
• cambiable
• cambiadizo
• cambiazo
• cambista
• recambiar
• recambio

Related words

• canje
• cambalache
• Portuguese cambiar
• Catalan canviar
• Italian cambiare

Usage notes

Set phrases include cambiar de idea and cambiar de opinión.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. cambiar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. cambiar
4. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 138
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cambiar
9. ^ a b c 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. cambiar
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cambiare
11. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 659
12. ^ 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, 492
13. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
14. ^ 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. 596
15. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 309
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. cambiar
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 163
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 139
19. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 281
20. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. cambiar
21. ^ 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. cambiar
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 194