cuarenta

Forms

cuarenta (cardinal number, invariable)^[1][2] Old Spanish quaraenta and cuaraenta were contracted to quarenta, the form of Berceo, spelt with ⟨qu⟩ until the modern spelling cuarenta.^[3][4] Navarrese and Aragonese texts also have quaranta, quoaranta and quareynta.^[5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish quaraenta, inherited from Vulgar Latin quaraginta, the popular form of Latin quadrāgintā (“forty”).^[3][7][2][1] Corominas notes that the form without /d/, the only one the Romance languages kept, is already found in African inscriptions, spelt ⟨qaragita⟩; he puts the loss down to a dissimilation of the two dental stops, helped by the careless pronunciation numerals are given.^[3] Bénaben explains the ⟨e⟩ of the second syllable by dissimilation of the three /a/ sounds.^[8]

The same Latin word is Portuguese quarenta, Galician corenta, Aragonese quaranta, Catalan quaranta (also coranta), French quarante, Italian quaranta and the Logudorese baranta.^[9][6]

The Latin numeral is formed from quadra-, the stem of quattuor (“four”) in compounds, and the decade suffix -gintā.^[10][4] It goes back to Proto-Indo-European *kʷétwr̥dḱomt (“four tens”), whose descendants include Ancient Greek τετρώκοντα (tetrṓkonta) and Sanskrit चत्वारिंशत् (catvāriṃśát).^[1] Gómez de Silva takes the final /a/ of the Latin tens to be a neuter plural ending.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a charter of 1206 with quaraenta;^[3][7] Berceo already writes quarenta.^[3][7] The Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (c. 1215, in a 14th-century copy) tells that the risen Christ con ellos cuarenta días moró “stayed with them forty days”, and the Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250) fixes the pound of meat at quarenta et ocho onças “forty-eight ounces”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Cuarenta is also used as an ordinal (el año cuarenta), a use the Academy recorded in 1884.^[12][2] The old ordinal cuarenteno was still the normal form in Nebrija.^[3] Autoridades in 1737 records the devotion of the quarenta horas, the forty hours of exposition of the Sacrament, and the phrase el año de quarenta for something dismissed as old-fashioned.^[13]

A sense from the card game of tute, las cuarenta, the forty points won by the player who holds the king and knight of trumps, is in Domínguez in 1846 with acusar las cuarenta, already also figurative.^[14] The Academy took in the card sense in 1869 and the figurative acusar las cuarenta “to tell someone plainly what one thinks” in 1884.^[15][12] Moliner and the DLE give cantar las cuarenta in the same sense.^[16][2]

In the Americas, Alemany records in 1917 the Chilean cortar a uno el cuarenta “to thwart someone's plans”, and Malaret the Argentine, Peruvian and Uruguayan ésas son otras cuarenta “that's another matter”.^[17][18] In Ecuador cuarenta is a card game played with forty cards.^[19]

Timeline

• 1206 – first record, as quaraenta, in a charter.^[3][7]
• c. 1215 – cuarenta días in the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca.^[11]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo writes quarenta; the derivative cuarentena appears in the same years.^[3][7]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Latin quadraginta for it.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as four tens.^[21]
• 1737 – Autoridades records the quarenta horas and el año de quarenta.^[13]
• 1846 – Domínguez records acusar las cuarenta in tute.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the figurative acusar las cuarenta and the etymology from quadraginta.^[12]

Meanings

Numeral

1. forty: four times ten: Invitaron a cuarenta personas.^[2][1]
2. fortieth: occupying the place number forty in a series: la fila cuarenta.^[2][22]

Noun

1. The number forty, and the figures that represent it.^[2]
2. (in the plural, las cuarenta) In tute, the forty points won by the player who holds the king and knight of the trump suit and declares them.^[2]
3. (Ecuador) A card game played with forty cards and coloured counters.^[19]

Word family

• cuarentena
• cuarentón
• cuarentavo

Related words

• cuatro
• cuaresma
• cuadragésimo
• Latin quadrāgintā

Usage notes

Cantar or acusar las cuarenta a alguien is to tell someone frankly and bluntly what one thinks of them.^[2][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. cuarenta
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 259
4. ^ a b c Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. cuarenta
5. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cuarenta
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cuarenta
7. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cuarenta
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cuarenta
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. quadraginta
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. quadrāgintā
11. ^ 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. cuarenta
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 312
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 452
14. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 502
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 224
16. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cuarenta
17. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 485
18. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 270
19. ^ 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. cuarenta
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 321
21. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1240
22. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cuarenta