comer

Forms

comer (first-person singular present como, first-person singular preterite comí, past participle comido)^[1] Old Spanish formed the future and conditional combré, combría until about 1400.^[2][3] The Cantar de mio Cid has the imperative comede beside comed.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish comer, inherited from Vulgar Latin *comēre, a remodelled form of Latin comedō (“to eat up, consume”).^[2][5][1][6] Corominas finds it unlikely that the classical infinitive gave the Spanish verb by regular sound change, since it would have become ⟨*conder⟩.^[2][7] He supposes that Vulgar Latin built the new infinitive on the irregular forms of the verb, ⟨comes⟩, ⟨comesse⟩, ⟨comest⟩ and ⟨comestis⟩, just as *potēre replaced posse.^[2][1]

Only Spanish and Portuguese (Portuguese comer) kept the verb.^[2][8] The other Romance languages, even Catalan, replaced it with descendants of mandūcō.^[2][8] The Latin verb is formed of com- and edō (“to eat”), the prefix giving it a completive sense, “eat up entirely”.^[1][9] Nascentes notes that once the root had been absorbed, the meaning passed to the prefixed verb, which ousted the simple one.^[7] De Vaan traces the simple verb to Proto-Italic *ed- and Proto-Indo-European *h₁ed- (“to eat”).^[10] Gómez de Silva notes that the same root gave most Germanic and Slavic words for eating, such as eat.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) uses the verb both intransitively and with an object, and has los ganados fieros non nos coman “so that the wild beasts do not eat us”.^[4][5] The phrase los que comien su pan “those who ate his bread” there means the lord's vassals and retainers.^[3] The Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) has seredes so el arbor e combredes “you will sit under the tree and eat”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish also used comer for “to itch” (do non les come se rrascan “they scratch where it does not itch”, in the Libro de buen amor), and the infinitive as a noun for the act of eating, a meal and, in the plural, dishes.^[3][12] Covarrubias in 1611 derives it from con and edo and draws the moral that we should not eat alone, since even beasts eat better in company; he records come diez mil ducados de renta “he enjoys an income of ten thousand ducats” and tiene de comer “he is well off”.^[13] Autoridades has the same sense of enjoying an income, and the figurative “to waste, run through”, said of an estate eaten up by its administrators.^[14]

In Spain comer also means to have the midday meal; in Costa Rica, Colombia and Venezuela it can mean to have the evening meal.^[6][1][15] Other uses are the capture of a piece in chess and draughts, the fading of a colour by light, and the dropping of letters or words in speech or writing.^[6][1] In much of Latin America it is also a vulgar word for sexual intercourse.^[15][1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid.^[5][4]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar: the future combredes.^[11]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the verb, and the noun comer for food.^[12]
• c. 1400 – the old future combré, combría goes out of use.^[2]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Latin edo and comedo.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from con and edo and records tiene de comer “he is well off”.^[13]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades: eating, enjoying an income, and wasting an estate.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy still records the noun comer for food.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. To chew and swallow solid food; to eat: No comas tan deprisa.^[6][1]
2. To take food, to eat: Hay que comer de todo.^[6][18]
3. To cause physical or mental itching; to eat at: A ese chico lo comen los celos.^[6]
4. To wear away, corrode or consume.^[6][1]
5. (chess, draughts) To take a piece from the opponent.^[6][1]
6. Of light: to make a colour fade.^[6]
7. (colloquial) To enjoy an income.^[6][14]
8. (intransitive) To have lunch, the midday meal: Hoy comemos fuera.^[6][1]
9. (intransitive) To have dinner, the last meal of the day.^[6][15]
10. (reflexive) To leave out a word, syllable or letter when speaking or writing.^[6]
11. (reflexive) To run through a fortune or an estate.^[6][14]
12. (reflexive, colloquial) To miss or ignore a sign or signal.^[6]
13. (reflexive, colloquial) Of socks and stockings: to slip down inside the shoes.^[6]

Word family

• comida
• comedor
• comedero
• comilón
• comilona
• comecocos
• concomerse
• reconcomerse

Related words

• comensal
• comestible
• comezón
• comistrajo
• Latin comedō
• Portuguese comer

Usage notes

The infinitive used as a noun, el comer “food”, was a separate headword in the Academy's dictionary (1884) and is marked as disused in the DLE.^[17][6][19] The proverb-like phrase comer y callar advises one who lives at another's expense to obey without answering back.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 158
3. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 125
4. ^ a b c Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 172
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. comer
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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. comer
7. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. comer
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 182
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. comer
12. ^ 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. comer
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. 491
14. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. comer
15. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. comer
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 315
17. ^ 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. 262
18. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. comer
19. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. comer