cribar

Forms

cribar (first-person singular present cribo, first-person singular preterite cribé, past participle cribado)^[1] Old Spanish wrote crivar and criuar; an Aragonese text of 1373 has agrivar.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish crivar, inherited from Latin crībrō (“to sift”).^[3][4][5] Wiktionary puts a dissimilated Late or Vulgar Latin *cribāre between them, with the second /r/ lost.^[1] Corominas finds the dissimilated noun cribum for crībrum (“sieve”) already in glosses copied in the 8th and 10th centuries; it gave the noun cribo.^[3]

The verb is Portuguese crivar, Asturian cribar and Italian cribrare;^[6][7][1] Navarrese has gribar.^[6][7][1] French cribler comes from Late Latin crīblāre, another dissimilated form.^[1]

The Latin verb is formed from the noun for “sieve”.^[8][1] For that noun De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *krei-dʰro- (“sieve”), the source also of críathar and hrīdder.^[9] Wiktionary analyses it as the root of cernō (“to sift”) with an instrument suffix.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso X's General Estoria (part IV, 1280) tells how Daniel had his servants bring ashes and sift them all over the temple before the king: mando daniel a sos moços adozir ceniza. & criuar lo por todo el tiemplo.^[2] Corominas's first records are later: the Aragonese agrivar of 1373 and crivar in Nebrija.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija defined it as cleaning with a cribo.^[10] The Diccionario de Autoridades quotes Guevara using it figuratively: the devil sifts men, helping them keep the chaff of their vices.^[11] The Academy's definition was long “to clean wheat or other seed with the sieve”; the 1899 edition added minerals and the separation of fine parts from coarse.^[12][13] The DRAE of 2001 added the figurative “to select rigorously”, and the DLE now has a medical sense, to carry out a screening.^[14][5][15] In the Río de la Plata cribar meant to make cribos, a kind of openwork embroidery.^[16][3]

Timeline

• 1280 – first record, in the General Estoria IV.^[2]
• 1373 – the Aragonese form agrivar.^[3][4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's crivar, Latin cribro.^[3][10]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades quotes Guevara and Cervantes's page sifting barley.^[11]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary adds minerals and grading by size.^[13]
• 2001 – the Academy adds “to select rigorously”.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sieve or sift seed, ore or other material through a criba, to separate the fine from the coarse or to remove impurities: Cribaron la arena antes de mezclarla.^[5][1]
2. To subject a group of people or things to a strict selection.^[5][17]
3. (medicine) To screen a population for a disease.^[5][1][15]

Word family

• cribado
• cribador

Related words

• criba
• cribo
• Latin crībrum
• Portuguese crivar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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), p. s.v. cribar
3. ^ 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, 242
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cribo
5. ^ a b c d e 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. cribar
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 1977
7. ^ a b Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 179
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. crībrō
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ 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. 814
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 659
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 253
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 283
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. cribar
15. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. cribar
16. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 267
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cribar