caro

Forms

caro (feminine cara, masculine plural caros, feminine plural caras)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cārus (“dear; costly”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin word already had both senses, “loved” and “precious, expensive”, which Spanish kept.^[5][6][7]

The same word is Portuguese caro, Galician caro, Asturian caru, Catalan car, Occitan car, French cher and Italian caro.^{[8][9][10][1]}

carus continues Proto-Italic *kāro-, from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂-ro- “desired, desirable”, with cognates in Venetic and Faliscan.^[11] Wiktionary compares Sanskrit चारु (cā́ru, “dear, beloved”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140), in the sense “dear, beloved”: „Pero Vermuez, el myo sobrino caro” “Pero Vermúdez, my dear nephew”.^[2][12][13]

Semantic evolution

The sense “expensive” is recorded in the 13th century: Alfonso X's prose of 1259 speaks of bread that is „ny mucho karo ny mucho rafez” “neither very dear nor very cheap”, and the Gran Conquista de Ultramar (c. 1295) of bread, wine and barley so dear that no one could buy them.^[14][12] Old Spanish also had “onerous, hard” and tener en caro “to hold dear”.^[14][15]

Covarrubias in 1611 explained the sense of price from that of love: what is precious and lovable is usually sold for much.^[16] The Diccionario de Autoridades put “expensive” first and recorded the phrase caro bocado, de lo caro for the best wine among drinkers, and the proverbs caro cuesta el arrepentir and comprar caro no es franqueza.^[17] The sense “beloved” survives in elevated language, as in Cervantes's „mi caro amigo”.^[18][4]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has sobrino caro “dear nephew”.^[2][12]
• 1189 – caro in the Fuero de Valfermoso.^[19]
• c. 1250 – first record of encarecer.^[3][2]
• 1259 – the sense “expensive” in Alfonso X's prose.^[14]
• 1351 – careza “dearness” in the Cortes.^[2]
• 1535 – first record from the Americas, in Santa Marta.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the price sense from the sense “loved”.^[16]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records caro bocado and de lo caro.^[17]

Meanings

Adjective

1. expensive, dear: costing a lot, or more than usual: un reloj caro.^[4][1]
2. Of a price: high.^[4]
3. Of a shop or service: charging high prices.^[4]
4. Of a place: where living costs a lot.^[4]
5. Costly in effort or suffering: El error le salió caro.^[4]
6. (formal) Beloved, dear.^[4][1]

Adverb

1. At a high price: Aquí cobran caro.^[4][1]

Word family

• carero
• careza
• carillo
• encarecer
• encarecimiento
• carísimo

Related words

• carestía
• caricia
• caridad
• Latin carus
• French cher

Usage notes

Set phrases include cara mitad “better half” and caro bocado.^[4] In the Caribbean the same spelling names other words: in Cuba a dish of crab roe and cassava, and in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico a climbing vine, Cissus verticillata.^[21][22][23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 881
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. caro
4. ^ 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. caro
5. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. caro
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. caro
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. cher
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. carus
10. ^ 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, 542
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. cārus
12. ^ 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. 633
13. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 101
14. ^ 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. caro
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 215
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. 431
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 189
18. ^ Cuervo, Rufino José (1886–1893), Diccionario de construcción y régimen de la lengua castellana, vols. I–II (A–D), París: A. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 2, 78
19. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. caro
20. ^ 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. caro
21. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. caro
22. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 219
23. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. caro