corromper

Forms

corromper (first-person singular present corrompo, first-person singular preterite corrompí, past participle corrompido)^[1] Old Spanish texts often write corronper, corronpido and coronpido.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin corrumpō (“to break up, destroy, spoil”).^[3][4][1] VOX counts it among the inherited words, and Corominas lists it among the popular derivatives of romper.^[5][3] Beside it Spanish took the learned corrupto (1240) and corrupción (1438) directly from Latin.^[3][6]

The same Latin verb gave Portuguese corromper, Catalan corrompre, French corrompre and Italian corrompere.^[7][1] Nascentes regards the Portuguese verb as semi-learned.^[8]

The Latin verb is formed from con- and rumpō (“to burst, break”).^[9][1] De Vaan reconstructs a nasal present Proto-Indo-European *Hru-n-p- (“to break”), with cognates in Old English rēofan (“to break, tear”) and in Indo-Iranian verbs for racking pain.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), in the law of the altar of unhewn stone: non la corronpas “do not defile it”.^[11][2] The Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), known from no later copy, speaks of irrigation channels that are corronpidas “broken, damaged”.^[11] Corominas's first record is Berceo.^[3][6]

Semantic evolution

By the second half of the 13th century the main senses were in place: in Alfonso X's prose the verb means to alter something's form (air corrupted by fire), to rot (a dead body that smells), to deflower a woman, and to pervert.^[12] The Siete Partidas use it for bribing a judge.^[13] Covarrubias (1611) lists corrupting morals, bribing judges, spoiling liquids and meat, falsifying letters and deflowering a maiden, and records the reflexive for a person who faints and has diarrhoea.^[14]

The Academy's dictionary of 1817 added the intransitive sense “to smell bad”.^[15] In 1884 it added “to annoy, irritate”, which the DLE now labels colloquial and limits to Aragon and Navarre.^[16][4] In the Canary Islands, Cuba, Puerto Rico and Tabasco corromper or corromperse is a euphemism for making the bowels move with a purgative or enema.^[17][18][19]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy) has corronpas.^[11]
• 1218–1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes has corronpidas.^[11]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo: Corominas's first record.^[3][6]
• 1240 – the learned corrupto appears in the Fuero Juzgo.^[3][6]
• 1256–1263 – the Siete Partidas use it for bribery.^[13]
• 1438 – first record of corrupción.^[6]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates it with Latin corrumpo and violo.^[20]
• 1518 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo, of a judge bribed with gifts.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias lists its senses.^[14]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the intransitive “to smell bad”.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy adds “to annoy, irritate”.^[16]
• 1924 – Millares records the Canarian euphemism for the effect of a purgative.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. To alter or change the form of something; also reflexive.^[4]
2. To spoil, damage or rot; reflexive, to go bad: Con el calor la fruta se corrompe enseguida.^[4][1]
3. To bribe.^[4][1]
4. To corrupt or pervert someone.^[4][1]
5. To make something deteriorate, such as customs or language: Dicen que la televisión ha corrompido el gusto del público.^[4]
6. (colloquial, Aragon and Navarre) To annoy, irritate.^[4]
7. (intransitive) To stink.^[4][22]
8. (Puerto Rico, Canary Islands) To make the bowels move, of a purgative or enema.^[18][17]

Word family

• corrompedor

Related words

• corrupción
• corrupto
• romper
• Latin corrumpō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. corromper
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 49
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. corromper
5. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. corromper
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. romper
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1922
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. corromper
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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 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. corromper
12. ^ 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. corromper
13. ^ 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, p. 795
14. ^ 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. 522
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 246
16. ^ 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. 298
17. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. corromper
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. corromper
19. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 405
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 319
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. corromper
22. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. corromper