demoler

Forms

demoler (first-person singular present demuelo, first-person singular preterite demolí, past participle demolido)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin dēmōlīrī (“to throw down, demolish”), a semi-learned borrowing influenced in Spanish by moler (“to grind”).^[2][3][1][4] The Latin verb is made of dē- and mōlior (“to labour, build up”).^[5][1][6] Wiktionary derives that verb from mōlēs (“mass, heap”); de Vaan allows that the noun may instead be formed from the verb, and finds the further origin unclear.^[1][7]

The same Latin verb was borrowed as Catalan demolir, French démolir and Italian demolire; Portuguese demolir is recorded from the 17th century and Cunha takes it through French.^{[8][9][1][10]}

Earliest recorded meaning

The first hits in the CDH are in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Gran crónica de España (1385), where men who came a manera de lagostas “like locusts” lo demolieron & destruyeron “demolished and destroyed it”, and in Pero López de Ayala's book on hawking (1386), where demolido is said of food digested in the bird's stomach.^[11] In 15th-century Castile the verb belongs to the acts of town councils and royal ordinances, usually paired with derribar “to pull down”: buildings put up against the law were to be demolidas e derribadas.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Beside “to pull down a building”, the verb was used, under the influence of moler, for grinding and digesting: Covarrubias in 1611 defines it as “more than grinding”, to grind food, use it up and digest it, and a text of Mexico City of 1571 has desmoler la comida o digerirla.^[12][13][2] The Diccionario de Autoridades defines only the pulling down of castles, walls and houses, notes the irregular forms demuelo, demuela, and adds a figurative sense, to wipe something from the memory, from Villamediana.^[14]

In the 19th century Domínguez added the destruction of institutions and forms of government, a sense the modern dictionaries keep.^[15][16][17] In Cuba demoler an estate meant to give up its original use and turn it into another, as when a cattle ranch was divided into sugar mills and coffee farms.^[18][19][20]

Timeline

• 1385 – Fernández de Heredia's Gran crónica de España.^[11]
• 1386 – López de Ayala uses demolido of digested food.^[11]
• 1464–1485 – the acts of the Madrid town council pair demoler e derribar.^[11]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City, in the sense “to digest”.^[13]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as grinding and digesting food; the BDELC's date of first record.^[12][2]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the pulling down of buildings and notes the forms with ue.^[14]
• 1917 – Alemany records the Cuban sense.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. To demolish, pull down or knock down (derribar) a building or other structure: El ayuntamiento mandó demoler el viejo mercado.^[3][16][1]
2. (figurative) To destroy or overturn a system, theory or institution.^[16][17][15]
3. (Cuba) To give up the use for which an estate was set up and turn it into another.^[18][19][20]

Word family

• demoledor

Related words

• demolición
• mole
• moler
• Latin dēmōlior

Usage notes

It is conjugated like mover: demuelo, demueles, demolemos.^[16][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mole
3. ^ a b 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. demoler
4. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 451
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 219
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. demolir
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1109
11. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. demoler
12. ^ 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. 659
13. ^ 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. demoler
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 67
15. ^ 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. 551
16. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. demoler
17. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. demoler
18. ^ a b c Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 538
19. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 359
20. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 559