colgar

Forms

colgar (first-person singular present cuelgo, first-person singular preterite colgué, past participle colgado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin collocāre (“to place, set in place”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from con- and locō (“to place”), from locus (“place”).^[5][1][3] The learned colocar is its doublet.^[1][6][7]

The general sense of the Latin verb narrowed in different ways in each Romance language: Romanian culca, Italian coricare, French coucher and Occitan colgar mean “to put to bed, lay down”, and Catalan colgar also “to bank a fire” and “to cover with earth, bury”.^[2][8] Only Spanish and Portuguese colgar mean “to hang”.^[2][9][10] The senses “to put to bed” and “to cover a fire” are already found in Latin, while the Ibero-Romance “to hang” is not recorded in Latin, though it appears in Spanish and Portuguese from their first texts.^[2][11] Bénaben contrasts the two outcomes: French made it “to place horizontally”, Spanish “to place vertically”.^[7]

Covarrubias derived the verb from Latin collum (“neck”), because hanged men hang by the neck, or from colligare (“to tie together”).^[12] Autoridades found the first more likely.^[13] The Academy first gave the etymology from the Latin verb meaning to place in 1884.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy), of horses led with señas espadas de los arçones colgando “a sword hanging from each saddlebow”.^{[15][2][3][16]}

Semantic evolution

By the 13th century the verb meant “to hang” in general, “to hang (a person)”, “to be suspended” and figuratively “to depend on someone”: the Fuero de Zorita (1218–1250) orders a repeated thief to be colgado, and Alfonso X's Lapidario has a stone that a woman wears colgada “hanging” on her.^[15][17] Covarrubias in 1611 recorded colgar as “to hang with tapestries”, estar colgado de la boca del que habla “to hang on a speaker's words”, and colgar a uno on his saint's day, putting a gold chain or ribbon round his neck as a present.^[12] The Academy kept that custom as a sense until the DLE marked it as obsolete.^[18][4]

In the 19th century Domínguez recorded colgar los hábitos “to leave the religious life”.^[19] The DLE now gives the general sense “to give up an activity”, as in colgar los libros.^[4] Newer senses are hanging up the telephone, posting something on a website, and, in the reflexive, a computer freezing.^[4][20] In parts of Latin America colgar means “to fail (a student)”, and the reflexive “to fall behind” or “to fail a subject”.^[21][22][23]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses colgando of swords hanging from the saddles.^[15][3]
• 1218–1250 – the Fuero de Zorita uses colgado for a hanged thief.^[15]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the verb of a stone worn hanging on the body.^[17]
• 1495 – Nebrija records colgadura and colgajo.^[3][2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin collum and records the custom of colgar a uno on his saint's day.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from Latin collocare.^[14]
• 1917 – Malaret records colgar “to fail an examinee” in Puerto Rico.^[22]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also reflexive) To hang something or someone so that it does not touch the ground: Colgó el abrigo en la percha.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To hang or show paintings, drawings or photographs in an exhibition.^[4]
3. (transitive) To hang up the telephone, ending a call.^[4][1]
4. (transitive) To impute something to someone, often falsely.^[4][20]
5. (transitive) To give up a profession or activity, as in colgar los hábitos or colgar los guantes.^[4][1]
6. (transitive, colloquial) To kill a person or animal by hanging.^[4]
7. (computing) To upload or post information on a website.^[4][1]
8. (intransitive) To be hanging or suspended from something.^[4]
9. (intransitive) Of a building, to stand on the edge of a steep slope.^[4]
10. (intransitive) Of a garment, curtain or the like, to hang lower on one side than the other.^[4]
11. (intransitive) To depend on someone's will or judgement.^[4]
12. (reflexive) To lean or hang on something, putting one's weight on it: Se colgó de mi brazo.^[4]
13. (reflexive, computing) Of a computer, to freeze.^[1][20]

Word family

• colgador
• colgadura
• colgajo
• colgandero
• colgante
• descolgar
• colgadizo

Related words

• colocar
• suspender
• lugar
• Latin collocō
• French coucher
• Portuguese colgar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 136
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. colgar
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. colgar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. collocō
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 179
7. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. colgar
8. ^ 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, 819
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 890
10. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. colgar
11. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. collocare
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. 484
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 413
14. ^ 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. 258
15. ^ 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. colgar
16. ^ 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. 719
17. ^ 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. colgar
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 173
19. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 411
20. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. colgar
21. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 2
22. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 142
23. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. colgar