corazón

Forms

corazón m (plural corazones)^[1] Old Spanish coraçon, with a voiceless sibilant, still kept in Judeo-Spanish and in villages of Salamanca and Cáceres.^[2] Leonese curazón in manuscripts of the Fuero Juzgo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish coraçon, inherited from Vulgar Latin *corāceōnem, a derivative of Latin cor (“heart”).^[2][4][5][1] Corominas takes it to have been an augmentative with the suffixes -āceum and -ōnem, referring to the great heart of the brave man and of the lover, as when the Cid's men strike with strong hearts.^[2][4][6] He does not rule out a form *coricio with a change of suffix from coricillum (“little heart”), which Petronius used without any diminutive sense.^[2][6] Nascentes, after Diez, explains the longer form by the avoidance of the monosyllable.^[7]

Cornu and Tiktin derived both this word and corada “entrails” from cūrō (“to clean out”), through a noun meaning “cleaning out an animal”.^[2] Corominas rejects this, since coratum (“entrails”) with ⟨o⟩ is found on a Latin curse tablet and the ⟨u⟩ of curazón is a Leonese dialect feature.^[2] García de Diego starts from *coratium (“viscera”), which Corominas calls an aberration.^[8][2]

Only Portuguese has a similar form, Portuguese coração; the other Romance languages kept the simple word, as in Catalan cor, French cœur and Italian cuore, and Old Spanish had cuer too.^{[2][9][10][8]} The voiceless medieval sibilant is irregular, and Corominas explains it by the emphasis with which the word is spoken.^[2]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ḱḗr, genitive *ḱr̥d-, like Ancient Greek καρδία (kardía) and the English word heart.^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The BDELC and the DCECH date the first record to about 1100, and Mozarabic has the word in a poet of about 1145.^[4][2] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) the hero kneels in Burgos and „de coraçón rogava”, prayed from the heart; he also „legolas al coraçon”, pressed his daughters to his heart.^[12][13]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already has the organ, courage and spirit, will and affection, and the centre of a thing: a stone found „en el coraçon dela tierra”.^[14] The Diccionario de Autoridades called the heart the noblest part of the body and gave the senses “spirit” and “goodwill”.^[15] Terreros added the middle of a kingdom or a flower.^[16] Baralt censured old uses such as saber de corazón “to know by heart” as Gallicisms.^[17]

The derivatives corazonada “impulse; hunch” (1729) and descorazonar (1604) grew out of the figurative senses.^[4] The DLE also gives the suit of hearts, the middle finger and the centre of a heraldic shield.^[5] In Puerto Rico the word names the crown of a pineapple and a tree with heart-shaped fruit, recorded by Abbad in 1788.^[18][19] In Mexico no tentarse el corazón means to act without hesitation.^[20]

Timeline

• c. 1100 – first record.^[4][2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has coraçón and de coraçón.^[12]
• c. 1145 – Mozarabic has the word in a poet.^[2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for the organ, for courage and for the centre of the earth.^[14]
• c. 1495 – first record of corazoncillo, the plant St John's wort.^[4]
• 1537 – the first record from the Americas, in Cartagena: en el corazón del invierno.^[21]
• 1604 – first record of descorazonar.^[4]
• 1729 – first record of corazonada.^[4]
• 1788 – Abbad names the Puerto Rican tree corazón.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. cor”.^[22]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The heart, the muscular organ that pumps the blood.^[5][1]
2. (card games, usually in the plural) hearts, a suit of the French pack.^[5][1]
3. Courage, spirit: No tuvo corazón para decírselo.^[5]
4. Feelings; kindness: Tiene muy buen corazón.^[5][1]
5. The middle finger (dedo corazón).^[5]
6. The core or centre of something: en pleno corazón del bosque.^[5][23]
7. A heart shape drawn or made in any material.^[5]
8. (heraldry) The centre point of a shield.^[5]
9. (Puerto Rico) The crown of a pineapple.^[18]

Word family

• corazonada
• corazoncito
• corazoncillo
• descorazonar
• rompecorazones
• sacacorazones

Related words

• acordar
• coraje
• cordial
• cuerdo
• recordar
• corada
• concordar
• discordia
• Latin cor
• Portuguese coração

Usage notes

Common phrases include de corazón “sincerely”, con el corazón en un puño “in anguish” and a corazón abierto “open-heart (surgery)”.^[5][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 189
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. corazón
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. corazón
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. corazón
6. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. corazón
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. coração
8. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1881
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 985
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. cor
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ 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. corazón
13. ^ 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. 786
14. ^ 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. corazón
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. corazón
16. ^ 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, 519
17. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 183
18. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. corazón
19. ^ a b Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. corazón
20. ^ García Icazbalceta, Joaquín (1899), Vocabulario de mexicanismos comprobado con ejemplos y comparado con los de otros países hispano-americanos, México: La Europea, p. s.v. corazón
21. ^ 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. corazón
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 291
23. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. corazón