claro

Forms

claro (feminine clara, masculine plural claros, feminine plural claras, superlative clarísimo)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin clārus (“loud; bright, clear”); Old Spanish claro has the same form.^[2][3][4][1] The initial /kl-/ is unusual: an inherited word would be expected to become ⟨*llaro⟩, with the palatal /ʎ/ of llamar and llave.^[1] Corominas places the word in a second layer of Castilian words, in which the group /kl-/ was kept by a later and more conservative treatment, but he does not consider it a learned or semi-learned word.^[2] Wiktionary compares clavo, which kept the group in the same way.^[1]

The same Latin word is Portuguese claro, Galician claro, Asturian claru, Catalan clar, French clair, Italian chiaro and Romanian chiar.^[5][6][1] In Romanian the word became an adverb, “even, just”.^[5]

The Latin adjective first meant “loud, sonorous” and then “bright, clear”; de Vaan reconstructs *klāro- (“loud”), from the root of calāre (“to call”) and clāmāre (“to shout”).^[7] Wiktionary derives it from Proto-Indo-European *kelh₁- (“to call, shout”) through *kl̥h₁rós.^[1] De Vaan points to the same shift from “loud” to “bright” in hel (“loud”) and hell (“bright”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140), where the sun rises bright: „Otro dia mañana, claro salie el sol” “the next morning the sun came up bright”.^[8][9] The Cid also calls a sword limpia e clara “clean and shining” and the city Valencia la clara “Valencia the illustrious”.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Lapidario already uses claro for what is full of light, easy to see, pure and transparent.^[11] Old Spanish also had the senses “blond” (of eyelashes), “unblemished” (of a day or a request) and “clearly” as an adverb.^[10] Covarrubias in 1611 opposes it to escuro and gives claro linaje “illustrious lineage” and the title Claros varones “illustrious men”.^[12]

The sense “sparse” (of cloth, hair or trees), which the Academy recorded in 1817 with pelo claro and árboles claros, led, Corominas says, to “rare, seldom found”, as in a sixteenth-century continuation of the Lazarillo.^[13][2] Cuervo collected classical examples of a voice or sound that is claro “distinct”.^[14] The thieves' slang of 1609 used claro for “sky”.^[15]

As a noun claro names a clearing in a wood and a short break in the rain, senses recorded in Cuba, Puerto Rico, Honduras and elsewhere in the Americas.^[16][17][18] In the sugar mills of Cuba, Mexico and Puerto Rico the clearest froth of the boiling cane juice is called claros; in Peru claro is a clear frothy drink.^[19][20] The adverb ¡claro! means “of course”.^[1] The word passed into Tagalog as klaro and into German as klaro.^[1] Spanish clarín was borrowed by Italian as clarino, whose diminutive clarinetto came back as clarinete in 1780.^[3]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid: claro salie el sol.^[8][3]
• 1220–1250 – the derivative claridad appears in Berceo.^[3][2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses claro for light, bright and transparent things.^[11]
• c. 1400 – a Latin–Spanish glossary renders Latin clarus as cosa clara.^[8]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses claro “what is seen” with Latin evidens and conspicuus.^[21]
• 1519 – first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[22]
• 1609 – the thieves' slang claro “sky”.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias: claro as opposed to escuro, and claro linaje.^[12]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as what is bathed in light and gives the Latin clarus.^[23]
• 1817 – the Academy records the sense “sparse”: pelo claro.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology “Del lat. clarus”.^[24]

Meanings

Adjective

1. bright, full of light: una sala muy clara.^[4][1]
2. Of the sky, the weather, the day or the night: cloudless, clear.^[4]
3. Of a colour: light, pale: verde claro.^[4][1]
4. Light-coloured: una camisa clara.^[4]
5. transparent and clean: un río de aguas claras.^[4][1]
6. Free of obstacles; open to the view.^[4]
7. Distinct, easily perceived: Se oía su risa, alegre y clara.^[4]
8. intelligible, easy to understand: un texto claro.^[4][1]
9. evident, beyond doubt.^[4]
10. Of a person: frank and direct.^[4]
11. Said openly, without reserve.^[4]
12. Sharp, perspicacious.^[4]
13. Of a mixture: thin, not thick: un café claro.^[4][25]
14. Of cloth, hair or trees: sparse, not dense.^[4][25]
15. (literary) illustrious, famous.^[25][12]

Noun

1. A clearing in a wood.^[1][16]
2. A sunny spell, a short break in the rain or the clouds.^[1][18]
3. A light area in a drawing, painting or photograph.^[25]
4. A bald patch.^[1]

Adverb

1. clearly: Habla claro.^[26]
2. (also as an interjection) Of course, naturally: —¿Vienes? —¡Claro!^[1]

Word family

• clara
• clarear
• claridad
• clarín
• aclarar
• aclaración
• esclarecer
• clarecer
• clareza
• claror

Related words

• clarinete
• declarar
• preclaro
• clarificar
• claroscuro
• claraboya
• clarete
• Latin clarus
• Portuguese claro
• Catalan clar

Usage notes

Set phrases include claro de luna, a moment when the moon shines out on a dark night, and a las claras “openly”.^[4][1] Poner en claro means “to clear up” and tener claro “to be sure of”.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 95
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. claro
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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. claro
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1963
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 1670
7. ^ 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
8. ^ 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. 702
9. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 169
10. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 116
11. ^ 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. claro
12. ^ 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. 467
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 204
14. ^ 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, 157
15. ^ a b Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 171
16. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 358
17. ^ Ortiz, Fernando (1923), Un catauro de cubanismos: apuntes lexicográficos, La Habana, p. 206
18. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 138
19. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 239
20. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. claro
21. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 313
22. ^ 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. claro
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 369
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 247
25. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. claro
26. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 140