cero

Forms

cero m (plural ceros)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian zero, an alteration of Medieval Latin zephirum, which is from Arabic صِفْر (ṣifr, “empty; zero”), which was pronounced séfer in popular Arabic.^[2][3] The DLE puts the Andalusian Arabic صِفْر (ṣífr) between the Latin and the Classical Arabic forms.^[4] Wiktionary instead takes the Spanish word from New Latin zerum.^[1]

Corominas notes that a Spanish change of the Latin or Arabic form to the Spanish one could not be explained, since Spanish does not normally lose /f/ before /r/, and that the word is recorded earlier in Italy than in Spain.^[2] How Italian got from the Latin form to its own is not well studied: Spitzer suspected a misreading of an abbreviation, while Corominas compares the Italian loss of a whole unstressed internal syllable in prete from presbyter and dito from digitus.^[2] Nocentini traces the Italian word from Fibonacci's Latin through the intermediate zevero.^[5]

From Italian also came French zéro and Catalan zero;^[6] English took zero through French in 1604, and Portuguese zero is from the same source.^[2] The same Arabic word, borrowed earlier, is cifra.^[2][7][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the first records about 1600, in Pedro de Oña, Fray Juan de los Ángeles and the plays of Cervantes.^[2][3] The Diccionario de Autoridades quotes Oña's Postrimerías with the image that was to stay with the word: the zero, worthless on its own, gives value to the other figures when it joins them.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Before cero the Iberian languages used cifra for the sign of nought, and Portuguese still does.^[2] Covarrubias in 1611 describes the zero of Arabic reckoning as a small o that has no value itself but raises the figure it follows to tens, hundreds and thousands, and offers fanciful Latin and Greek etymologies.^[9][10] He already applies cero to a person who is worthless alone but useful beside another.^[9][10] The Diccionario de Autoridades calls it an Arabic word meaning “nothing”.^[8]

The physical sense, the point from which a scale is counted, appears in the Americas by 1791, when a text from Lima reports the thermometer “above zero”.^[11] The Academy's 1899 edition gives a modern Latin zephirum from Arabic as the source, the arithmetical definition and the physical sense.^[12] Today the word is also the lowest mark in an exam or contest and, as an adjective, expresses the complete absence of something.^[4][13]

Phrases include cero a la izquierda “a person who counts for nothing”, recorded in Lima in 1856, and cortar el pelo al cero “to shave the head”.^[11][13] In much of Latin America cero kilómetros is a new, unused car.^[14]

Timeline

• 12th century – Leonardo of Pisa uses Latin zephirum for the zero.^[2]
• before 1374 – Italian zero is first recorded.^[5]
• 1485 – French borrows zéro from Italian.^[15]
• c. 1600 – first Spanish records, in Pedro de Oña, Fray Juan de los Ángeles and Cervantes.^[2][3]
• 1604 – English zero, from Italian through French.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the zero of Arabic reckoning.^[9]
• 1615 – first record in the Americas, in Peru.^[11]
• 1786–1793 – Terreros gives the phrase eso es cero “that is nothing”.^[16]
• 1899 – the Academy first gives an etymology, modern Latin zephirum from Arabic.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. zero: the number that expresses no quantity at all or a null value.^[4][1]
2. The figure 0, which placed to the right of a whole number multiplies it by ten.^[4]
3. The lowest possible mark in an exam or competition: Sacó un cero en el examen de química.^[4][13]
4. In a measuring device, the starting point of the scale: tres grados bajo cero.^[4][13]
5. (figurative) A person of no worth, in cero a la izquierda.^[11][17]

Adjective

1. Expressing the complete absence of something: Hoy tengo cero ganas de salir.^[4][7]
2. In a numbered series, marking the starting point: la hora cero.^[4][7]

Related words

• cifra
• descifrar
• Italian zero
• French zéro

Usage notes

Cero absoluto is the lowest temperature possible, −273.16 °C in the DLE's figure.^[4] In Dominican baseball un cero is an inning with no runs.^[18]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 50
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cero
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. cero
5. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. zero
6. ^ a b Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 283
7. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cero
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 285
9. ^ 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. 585
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b c d 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. cero
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 220
13. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cero
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. cero
15. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. zéro
16. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 402
17. ^ Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 547
18. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. cero