cerner

Forms

cerner (first-person singular present cierno, first-person singular preterite cerní, past participle cernido)^[1] Berceo has the old participle cernuda, and Old Spanish texts write çernida, çernió.^[2][3] The variant cernir, with a change of conjugation, is already Nebrija's form and is used today in Salamanca, Argentina, Mexico and other countries of the Americas.^[2][4][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cernō (“to sift, separate, distinguish”).^[2][5][6][1] Latin already used the verb for separating with a sieve (Cato), and this sense has also become fixed in Romanian cerne, Sardinian cherrere, Occitan cerner, Catalan cendre and in Italian and Rhaeto-Romance dialects.^[2][7] Asturian cerner still means “to sift” among other senses, and Portuguese cernir “to sift” is recorded from 1858.^[8][9]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *krinō, from Proto-Indo-European *krey- (“to sift, separate”).^[1][10] Its cognates include Ancient Greek κρίνω (krī́nō, “to separate”) and the Celtic verbs for sifting and shaking.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (1220–1250), with the participle in farina cernuda “sifted flour”.^[2][5] The Moamín (1250) prescribes a medicine molida e cernida “ground and sifted”, and the Concilio de León (c. 1250) mentions asnos de cerner, apparently the asses of a sifting mill.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In 1611 Covarrubias gives both cerner and cernir and says that the verb is as good as discernir, to separate one thing from another; he also reports the opinion that it should be cerder, because the first sieves were made of horsehair (cerdas), and records cerner las vides for vines beginning to show their fruit.^[13] Autoridades (1729) has the figurative “to judge, examine” as rare, and explains cerner las viñas by the small white flowers, which look like sifted flour.^[14]

The sense of birds hovering on beating wings is explained by the slow swinging of a sieve; it is intransitive in 16th-century authors and reflexive from Autoridades on.^[2] The Academy's dictionary of 1843 adds “to drizzle” and “to sway the body from side to side”.^[15] The modern cernerse “to loom, threaten” is in the Academy's dictionary of 2001.^[16] In Ecuador the verb has meant “to strain a liquid”, in Puerto Rico “to search or examine closely”, and in Leonese it also means “to flower” of cereals.^{[17][18][19][20]}

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos has farina cernuda “sifted flour”.^[2][5]
• 1250 – the Moamín uses the participle cernida.^[12]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for sifting a ground stone.^[21]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records the variant cernir.^[2]
• 1571 – Molina's dictionary in Mexico City has cerner el ave en el aire “the bird hovers in the air”.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records cerner las vides and the variant cernir.^[13]
• 1729 – Autoridades marks the sense “to judge, examine” as rare.^[14]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary records the senses “to drizzle” and “to hover”.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology Latin cernere.^[23]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sift flour from the bran, or any powder, through a sieve (cedazo), so that the coarse part stays on the mesh.^[6][1]
2. To watch, observe, examine.^[6]
3. To refine one's thoughts and actions.^[6]
4. (impersonal) To drizzle.^[6][1]
5. Of the vine, the olive, wheat and other plants: to shed pollen, to be in flower.^[6][1]
6. (reflexive) To sway the body from side to side while walking.^[6][24]
7. (reflexive) Of a bird: to hover, beating its wings without moving from the spot.^[6][1]
8. (reflexive) Of a misfortune: to loom, to threaten closely: Una tormenta se cierne sobre la costa.^[6][24]

Word family

• cernedero
• cernedor
• cernidillo
• cernidura

Related words

• cierne
• discernir
• discreto
• secreto
• decreto
• cernícalo
• Catalan cendre

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. 2, 48
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cerner
6. ^ 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. cerner
7. ^ 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, 680
8. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu
9. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
13. ^ 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. 588
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 284
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 159
16. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. cerner
17. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena
18. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo
19. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. cerner
20. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. cerner
21. ^ 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)
22. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies)
24. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos