cocinar

Forms

cocinar (first-person singular present cocino, first-person singular preterite cociné, past participle cocinado)^[1] Old Spanish and Nebrija write cozinar.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin cocīnō (“to cook”), the late form of coquīnō (“to cook, act as a cook”).^[1][4] The DLE, the DCECH and the Breve diccionario give the classical verb as the source, and DICCA-XV the Vulgar Latin form.^[5][6][7][3] The DCECH traces cocina, recorded in 947, to the Vulgar Latin cocīna beside Late Latin coquīna.^[6] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 derived the verb from the noun as well as from Latin, and Gómez de Silva leaves both explanations open.^[8][9]

In Latin the verb is found in Plautus;^[1][10][11] Wiktionary and Lewis and Short form it from coquīnus (“of cooking”), and the OLD compares coquō (“to cook”).^[1][10][11] That verb goes back to *pekʷ- (“to cook”).^[12]

The same verb is Portuguese cozinhar, Galician cociñar, Catalan cuinar, French cuisiner and Italian cucinare.^[13][4][14] García de Diego also records Asturian cociar in western Asturias.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit for the verb is the Escorial Bible I.j.8, from before 1300, which lists vasos de tierra pora cozinar “earthen pots for cooking” among provisions; its earlier hits under the lemma are the noun cocina.^[2] The DCECH and the Breve diccionario date the verb to Alfonso de Palencia's vocabulary of 1490, which explains Latin cocino as cozinar.^[6][7][15]

Semantic evolution

The verb has always meant to prepare food; the Diccionario de Autoridades quotes Guevara: te vayas à cocinar, pues no te alquilamos la lengua para que hablasses “go and cook, for we did not hire your tongue to talk”.^[16] Terreros recorded a transferred sense, “to meddle in something”, with es amigo de cocinarlo todo “he likes to have a finger in every pie”, and the Academy's dictionary of 1817 has it as colloquial.^[17][18]

In the regions where s and z sound alike, cocer “to boil” fell out of use because it sounds like coser “to sew”; in Argentina and generally in the Americas cocinar took its place and lost its own nuance.^[6] Alemany in 1917 recorded “to boil” in Colombia, and the DLE has this sense for Colombia and Venezuela.^[19][5] The DLE and the DAMER also have a colloquial sense “to plot behind other people's backs”, used from Mexico to the Río de la Plata.^[5][20] Wiktionary records a recent Internet slang use as a semantic loan from English cook.^[1]

Timeline

• before 1300 – the Escorial Bible I.j.8 has pora cozinar.^[2]
• 1300–1305 – the Libro del cavallero Cifar has the participle cozinado (in a copy of the late 15th century).^[2]
• 1423 – DICCA-XV's first record from the Crown of Aragon.^[3]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's vocabulary, the DCECH's first record.^[6][15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija has calderin para cozinar for Latin cacabus.^[3]
• 1547 – the first record from the Americas, in Peru: pan cozido e byen cuzinado.^[21]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as to cook, prepare and dress food.^[16]
• 1786–1793 – Terreros records the sense “to meddle”.^[17]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary marks that sense as colloquial.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, from cocina and Latin coquinare.^[8]
• 1917 – Alemany records the Colombian sense “to boil”.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. To cook: to prepare food, especially with heat; also used without an object: Los domingos cocina mi abuelo.^[5][22][1]
2. (Colombia, Venezuela) To boil (cocer).^[5][20]
3. (colloquial) Of a small group of people: to plot something behind others' backs.^[5][20]
4. (colloquial, intransitive) To meddle in things that are none of one's business.^[5][22]
5. (Peru, Dominican Republic) To wound someone repeatedly.^[20][23]
6. (Cuba, Dominican Republic; pronominal) cocinarse: to feel very hot.^[20][23]
7. (Internet slang, intransitive) To do something very well, after English cook.^[1]

Word family

• precocinar

Related words

• cocina
• cocinero
• cocer
• Latin coquīnō
• Portuguese cozinhar
• Catalan cuinar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. cocinar
3. ^ a b c d Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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. cocinar
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 109
7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cocina
8. ^ 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. 252
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
10. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1878
14. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto
15. ^ 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
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 391
17. ^ a b 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, 450
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 208
19. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 401
20. ^ a b c d e Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
21. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
22. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
23. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org