daño

Forms

daño m (plural daños)^[1] Old Spanish wrote danno most often, beside daño, dano, danyo and daynno.^[2][3] Latinising spellings dapno, dampno and dapño are found in Old Spanish and in early texts from the Americas.^[2][3][4] The Latin manuscripts also write dampnum.^[5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish danno, inherited from Latin damnum (“loss, expense; harm”).^[7][8][1][9] The same Latin word is Portuguese dano, Galician dano, Asturian dañu, Catalan dany, Old Occitan dan, French dam, Italian danno, Sardinian dannu and Romanian daună, and it was borrowed as Basque damu (“harm; regret”).^[10][9][1] The French word survives only in a set phrase, replaced by its derivative dommage.^[11][10] Coromines explains Catalan ⟨ny⟩ by the influence of pairs such as engan beside engany; the oldest Catalan forms are don and dan.^[12]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *dapnom and Proto-Indo-European *dh₂p-no- (“expense, investment”), and is related to daps (“sacrificial meal, feast”).^[13][1] Wiktionary sets up a root *deh₂p- (“to sacrifice, to lose”) and compares Ancient Greek δαπάνη (dapánē, “cost, expenditure”).^[1][5] Lewis and Short still derived the word from dō (“to give”), but the DHLF notes that no link with that verb was felt in Latin.^[6][14] Covarrubias in 1611 followed Varro in tracing it to dēmō (“to take away”).^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy): leaving the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña, the Cid says non quiero fazer en el monesterio un dinero de daño “I do not want to cause the monastery a penny's worth of harm”.^[16][7][17] The Fuero de Madrid has dano of a dog that does damage in the vineyards, and the Cortes of León of 1208 speak of danno done to others.^[16]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the word meant harm, injury and loss, and was used in phrases such as fazer daño “to harm”, tomar daño “to suffer harm” and con daño “at a loss”.^[3] The prose of Alfonso X has en daño de “to the detriment of”.^[18] Covarrubias (1611) defines it as the loss that someone suffers in person, property or honour, and explains sin daño de barras “without harm to anyone” from the game of argolla.^[15] The Diccionario de Autoridades records dar o tomar dinero a daño, to lend or borrow at interest.^[19] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 lists the proverbs poco daño espanta, y mucho amansa and huye del malo, que trae daño.^[20] Gaspar y Roig (1853–1855) add the figurative sense of pain and grief.^[21]

In the popular speech of most of Spanish America a daño is a hex or the evil eye.^[8][22][23] Puerto Rico has the quotation A usté le han echao un daño “they have put a hex on you” (1917).^[24] The Canarian historical dictionary attributes this sense in the Canaries to American, especially Cuban, influence.^[25] In the Dominican Republic and elsewhere it also means damage done by animals to crops, a breakdown of a vehicle, and the dishonour of an unmarried woman.^[26][22] Judeo-Spanish has fazer daño and many other phrases with the word.^[27]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has un dinero de daño.^[16][7]
• 1208 – danno in the Cortes of León.^[16]
• 1220–1250 – first record of the verb dañar.^[7]
• 1241 – first record of dañoso.^[7]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses en danno de “to the detriment of”.^[18]
• 1490 – first record of dañino.^[7]
• 1509 – first record in the Americas, dapño in Santo Domingo.^[4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains sin daño de barras.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records dar dinero a daño “to lend at interest”.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology and defines it as the effect of dañar.^[28]

Meanings

Noun

1. harm, damage: the effect of damaging: La helada causó mucho daño en los naranjos.^[8][1][29]
2. Pain or hurt caused by a blow or fall, especially in hacer(se) daño: Me hice daño en la rodilla.^[29][30]
3. (Latin America) A hex, the evil eye.^[8][22][1]
4. (law, in the plural) The offence of deliberately damaging another person's property.^[8]

Word family

• dañar
• dañino
• dañoso
• dañado

Related words

• condenar
• damnificar
• indemne
• indemnizar
• Latin damnum
• Portuguese dano

Usage notes

Daños y perjuicios is the compensation demanded from someone who has caused damage, and daño emergente in law the value of the loss suffered.^[8][1] Hacer daño covers everything from physical pain to moral harm.^[29]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. daño
3. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 162
4. ^ a b 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. daño
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. daño
8. ^ a b c d e f 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. daño
9. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2115
10. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. damnum
11. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. daño
12. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 3, 19
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
15. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1, 634
16. ^ 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. daño
17. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 205
18. ^ 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. daño
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 6
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 276
21. ^ Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 731
22. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. daño
23. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 430
24. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. daño
25. ^ 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. daño
26. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. daño
27. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. daño
28. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 336
29. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. daño
30. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. daño