consuegro

Forms

consuegro m (plural consuegros, feminine consuegra, feminine plural consuegras)^[1] Alfonso X's Estoria de España writes cossuegro.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cōnsocer (“joint father-in-law”).^[3][4][5][1] The Latin noun is a compound of con- and socer (“father-in-law”).^[6][1] According to the DLE the feminine consuegra continues Late Latin consocrus, altered under the influence of suegra.^[7]

The same Latin word is Portuguese consogro, Galician consogro, Catalan consogre, Asturian consuegru, Italian consuocero and Romanian cuscru.^[3][4][8][9] The Latin word for father-in-law goes back to Proto-Italic *swekuros and Proto-Indo-European *swéḱuros, the source also of Ancient Greek ἑκυρός (hekurós) and Old High German swehur.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso X's Estoria de España (1270–1284) says of the emperor Claudius that he seemed cruel por que mato a apio silano su cossuegro “because he killed Appius Silanus, his co-father-in-law”.^[2] Alonso's dictionary of Old Spanish has the word only from the 15th century, with Nebrija.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed the same: the father or mother of one spouse in relation to the father or mother of the other, as Covarrubias (1611), Autoridades (1729) and the Academy's dictionaries define it.^[12][13][14] Autoridades quotes Cervantes's Quijote, in which a farmer asks for una carta de favor para mi consuegro.^[13] In the Americas a text from Yucatán of 1560 describes the dowry given by the young man's father to the consuegro.^[15] The DLE now defines it as the father- or mother-in-law of one's son or daughter, with a plural for the two of them.^[7]

Timeline

• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España has cossuegro.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin consocer and, for consuegra, consocrus.^[16][11]
• 1560 – the first record from the Americas, in Yucatán.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines the word.^[12]
• 1729 – Autoridades gives it as consuegro, gra with quotations from Illescas and Cervantes.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. The father-in-law of one's son or daughter; the father of one's son-in-law or daughter-in-law (feminine consuegra).^[7][1]
2. (in the plural) The father- and mother-in-law of one's son or daughter.^[7][1]

Related words

• suegro
• Latin cōnsocer

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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)
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
5. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. consuegro
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b c d 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. consuegro
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll
9. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu
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 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
12. ^ 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. 504
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 538
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real
15. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 317