catar

Forms

catar (first-person singular present cato, first-person singular preterite caté, past participle catado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish catar, inherited from Late Latin cattō (“to see”), the late form of Latin captō (“to try to catch”) with /pt/ assimilated to /tt/.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is the frequentative of capiō (“to take, seize”), formed with the suffix -tō.^[5][1][2]

Latin already used the verb for trying to perceive with the senses, above all hearing and sight; from Apuleius on it often means “to try to see”.^[2] Isidore of Seville uses the late form in the sense “to see” and derives cattus (“cat”) from it, which is wrong.^[2] Corominas also rejects the reverse view, which derives the verb from the name of the cat, since the verb and the noun treated the initial /k/ differently and the chain of meanings would be too long.^[2] Covarrubias derived it from catus (“shrewd”), and Autoridades repeated his view.^[6][7]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese catar, Galician catar, Asturian catar, Romanian căta, Italian cattare “to acquire” and Old Occitan catar.^[8][1][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the verb to the Glosas Emilianenses, about 950, though he notes that the form there may be a scribal slip.^[2][3] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) it means “to look at”: the hero tornava la cabeça e estávalos catando “turned his head and stood looking at them”.^[9] Another line has oios velidos catan a todas partes “bright eyes look all around”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

From “to try to see” came the commonest medieval senses, “to look, see” and “to observe, examine”.^[2] Aragonese texts also used it for “to keep, guard”.^[2] From “to try to catch” came “to search”, very common in the Middle Ages and already called old by Juan de Valdés in his Diálogo de la lengua.^[2] The sense most common today, “to taste, sample”, is first recorded in 1539, in Guevara.^[2]

Covarrubias (1611) gives “to taste” beside “to look” and the phrase quando menos me cato “when I least expect it”.^[6] Autoridades (1729) defines it as to see, look, examine, and also to taste food for its flavour.^[7] The verb is also used for taking the honeycombs from a hive.^[4][2] The DLE now marks all the senses of looking, judging, searching, keeping and curing as rare or obsolete.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 950 – first record, in the Glosas Emilianenses.^[2][3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses catar for “to look at”.^[9][10]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes, the first record in a contemporary manuscript, uses it for “to examine”.^[9]
• 1532 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico: cuando no nos catamos.^[11]
• 1539 – first record of the sense “to taste”, in Guevara.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin catus “shrewd”.^[6]
• 1729 – Autoridades defines it as to see, look, examine and to taste.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To taste or sample food or drink to judge its flavour: El enólogo cató los vinos de la última cosecha.^[4][1]
2. To take the honeycombs from a beehive, leaving enough for the bees; to castrar.^[4]
3. (rare) To look at (mirar); also pronominal.^[4][1]
4. (obsolete) To judge, consider; to inquire into; to examine or search.^[4]
5. (obsolete) To keep, guard; to cure a sick person.^[4]
6. (obsolete, intransitive) To face something; to aim at a purpose.^[4]

Word family

• cata
• catador
• catadura
• catalejo
• percatar
• acatar
• recatar
• rescatar
• catavino
• catear

Related words

• Latin captō
• Portuguese catar

Usage notes

Catar is also a Spanish spelling of the country name Qatar, from Arabic, unrelated to the verb.^[1] Valdés already considered the sense “to search” old in the 16th century.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 920
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. catar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. catar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1, 458
7. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 228
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ 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. catar
10. ^ a b 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. 649
11. ^ 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. catar