cavar

Forms

cavar (first-person singular present cavo, first-person singular preterite cavé, past participle cavado)^[1] Old Spanish texts mostly write cauar, with ⟨u⟩ for the consonant.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish cavar, inherited from Latin cavō (“to hollow out, dig”).^[3][4][5][1] The Latin verb is formed on cavus (“hollow”).^[3][4][6]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese cavar, Galician cavar, Catalan cavar, Occitan cavar, Italian cavare and Old French chever.^[7][8][1]

De Vaan derives the adjective from *kawo- and *ḱouH-ó- (“hollow”), with cognates in Old Irish cúa (“hollow”) and Ancient Greek κοῖλος (koîlos, “hollow”).^[9] Wiktionary takes the root to be *ḱewh₁- (“to swell”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb appears in the early 13th century, in Berceo and in the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca.^[3][4] In that poem (c. 1215, known from a 14th-century copy) a lion digs Mary's grave: El leyón cava la tierra dura, “the lion digs the hard ground”.^[10] The form cauada is already in a document of Oña of 1118.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the verb meant to dig, to work the soil of vineyards and gardens, and to undermine; it was also said of a bull pawing the ground.^[11][12] The prose of Alfonso X uses it for digging out stones in mines and for cutting letters into a stone.^[13] The Fuero de Zorita, of 1218–1250, has a heading on the gardener who must dig the garden.^[10]

Covarrubias in 1611 derived it from Latin, but noted that some thought it Arabic or Hebrew.^[14] Autoridades in 1729 added that matter in an abscess “digs” when it eats into the flesh, and that a thought can dig into the mind, so that the verb also meant to ponder.^[15] The Academy kept “to think deeply” as a figurative sense through the 19th century; today the DLE marks it as obsolete.^[16][5] In rural northern Ecuador cavar means to lift potatoes.^[17][5]

In the Americas the word is recorded from 1519, in Puerto Rico, for digging for water.^[18]

Timeline

• 1118 – the derivative cauada “hollow” in a document of Oña.^[2][3]
• c. 1215 – the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca: the lion digs the hard ground.^[10][3]
• 1218–1250 – the Fuero de Zorita, the first hit without a later copy.^[10]
• c. 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre uses it for digging vineyards in March.^[11]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for digging and for engraving stone.^[13]
• 1519 – first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the view that the word is Arabic or Hebrew.^[14]
• 1729 – Autoridades gives the figurative sense “to ponder”.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin cavare.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To dig: to lift and turn over the earth with a hoe (azada) or a similar tool: Cavaron el huerto antes de sembrar.^[5][1]
2. (transitive) To dig a hole, ditch or tunnel: Los presos cavaron un pasadizo bajo el muro.^[19][1]
3. (Ecuador, transitive, rural) To harvest potatoes.^[5][17]
4. (intransitive) To go deep into something, to penetrate.^[5][1]
5. (intransitive, obsolete) To think something over, to ponder (cavilar).^[5]

Word family

• excavar
• entrecavar
• socavar
• cavador
• cavazón
• cavadura

Related words

• cava
• escavar
• Latin cavus

Usage notes

Cavar su propia fosa or cavar su propia tumba, “to dig one's own grave”, means to act to one's own harm.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cavar
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 929
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cavar
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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. cavar
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cavare
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. cavāre
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cavar
11. ^ 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. 656
12. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 107
13. ^ 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. cavar
14. ^ 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. 463
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 240
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 228
17. ^ 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. cavar
18. ^ a b 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. cavar
19. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cavar