cruzar

Forms

cruzar (first-person singular present cruzo, first-person singular preterite crucé, past participle cruzado)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish cruz + -ar.^[2][3][1] Corominas calls it a derivative common to all the western Romance languages, such as Portuguese cruzar and French croiser.^[2][1] Late Latin cruciāre already meant “to cross” in the Gaulish writer Saint Avitus, about 500, but the Romance forms do not continue it phonetically.^[2]

cruz is a semi-learned descendant of Latin crux (“cross, gallows; torment”).^[2] De Vaan reconstructs *kruks, and compares Celtic words for “heap, hill” and Germanic words for “back” and “heap”;^[4][1] Wiktionary calls the origin unclear, perhaps a loan from another language.^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora (dated 1246–1252 by the CDH, known from an 18th-century copy), for pilgrims who “took the cross” to go overseas: Cruzáronse romeos por ir en Ultramar “pilgrims took the cross to go overseas”.^[5][6][3] The participle cruzado “crusader” is recorded earlier, in a charter of 1218.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The oldest sense is “to take the cross, go and fight the infidels”, common in the 13th century.^[2][7] In the 14th century it also meant “to set crosswise” (lances, paths) and “to mark with a cross”, as in Juan Ruiz.^[2][8] The sense “to go across a line or an obstacle”, unknown in most Romance languages, appears once in Santillana and then in the Golden Age, in Cervantes and Balbuena.^[2][9]

Autoridades gives “to place crosswise”, as the arms, and “to go across”, with quotations from Mendoza and Ercilla.^[10] The Academy added “to receive the cross of a military order” in 1843.^[11] Salvá (1846) records the crossing of breeds of horses, and the Academy's 1869 edition has the naval sense “to cruise”, cruzar las castas for crossbreeding and cruzar la cara “to strike someone in the face”.^[12][13] Alemany in 1917 notes “to plough a second time” in Cuba and Chile.^[14] In Chile and Puerto Rico cruzar or cruzarse also means “to fight with someone”.^[15][16]

Timeline

• 1218 – the participle cruzado appears in a charter, and cruzada in 1220.^[2][3]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo uses cruzarse for taking the cross.^[3][6]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz uses it for marking with the sign of the cross.^[8]
• c. 1495 – crucero is first recorded, in Nebrija.^[3]
• 1572 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades defines “to place crosswise” and “to go across”.^[10]
• 1832 – the noun cruce enters the Academy's dictionary.^[2]
• 1846 – Salvá records the crossing of breeds of horses.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To lay one thing across another in the shape of a cross.^[18][1]
2. (transitive) To fold one's arms across the chest; to cross one's legs when sitting: Cruzó las piernas y esperó.^[18][1]
3. (transitive) To go across a road, field, street and so on: Cruzamos el puente a pie.^[18][1]
4. (transitive) To invest someone with the cross and habit of a military order.^[18]
5. (transitive) To plough land a second time, with furrows at right angles to the first.^[18]
6. (transitive) To crossbreed animals of the same species but different stock.^[18][1]
7. (transitive) To cross a cheque with two parallel lines, so that it can only be paid into an account.^[18]
8. (transitive) To exchange words, glances or greetings.^[1][19]
9. (nautical) To cruise in all directions within an area.^[18]
10. (reflexive) To take the cross, join a crusade (cruzada).^[18]
11. (reflexive) Of two people or things: to pass each other going in opposite directions.^[18]
12. (reflexive) To get in the way, come between.^[18]

Word family

• cruce
• cruzada
• cruzado
• cruzamiento
• entrecruzar
• descruzar

Related words

• cruz
• crucero
• encrucijada
• Latin crux

Usage notes

The verb is spelt with ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩: crucé, cruce.^[1] In 18th-century El Hierro cruzar was also the name of a dance for one man and three women.^[20]

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 h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 253
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cruz
4. ^ 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, p. s.v. crux
5. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cruzar
6. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. s.v. cruzar
7. ^ 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. cruzar
8. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 154
9. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. s.v. cruzar
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 668
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 208
12. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 315
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 223
14. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 482
15. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 441
16. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. cruzar
17. ^ 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. cruzar
18. ^ 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. cruzar
19. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cruzar
20. ^ 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. cruzar