deseo

Forms

deseo m (plural deseos)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote desseo, and deseyo and desevo occur.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin dēsidium (“erotic desire”), the neuter counterpart of classical Latin dēsidia (“idleness, sloth”).^[3][5][6] The Latin noun had already taken on the sense “debauchery, voluptuousness” in antiquity, in line with the moral teaching that idleness leads to lust;^[1] Plautus uses it in this sense.^[3][6] A masculine Medieval Latin dēsideus “lust” appears in a glossary preserved in a 10th-century Italian manuscript, and the neuter turns up in several medieval texts.^[3][1] Wiktionary sees likely support from dēsīderium (“desire”).^[1] García de Diego instead derives the word from that noun, altered under the influence of the word for “sloth”.^[7] Corominas rejects a derivation from dissidium (“discord”) as unlikely in meaning.^[3]

The same base gave Portuguese desejo, Galician desexo, Catalan desig and Italian desio.^[3][8][1] The Sardinian disizu is a loan from Catalan.^[3] Corominas notes that the Catalan and Occitan forms fit better with a variant *desedium.^[3] The verb desear is derived from the noun.^[3][5]

The classical noun is formed from dēses (“idle”), from dēsideō (“to sit idle”), a compound of sedeō (“to sit”).^[1][9] The Latin verb continues Proto-Indo-European *sed- (“to sit”).^[1]

Old Spanish sometimes spelt the word with ⟨ss⟩, and Moroccan Judeo-Spanish still has a voiceless /s/;^[4][10] Corominas explains this as influence from words with the prefix des-, since the voiced /z/ is usual in Old Spanish, in Eastern Judeo-Spanish and in the other Romance languages.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEMel's first record is the phrase aver deseo “to wish” in the Fazienda de Ultramar, whose manuscript dates from about 1211–1235.^[4][10] Corominas's first record is in Berceo, and the Breve diccionario dates it 1220–1250.^[3][5] In the Vida de San Millán (c. 1230, known from an 18th-century copy) a prayer says yo la tu faz deseo, ca otra cosa non “I desire your face, and nothing else”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In medieval texts deseo meant “desire” and also “love, longing”: in Berceo's Duelo de la Virgen, the speaker says yo finco bien muerta con el vuestro deseo “I am left as good as dead with longing for you”.^[2][11] The Fuero Juzgo (c. 1254) uses the plural for a man's wishes and appetites.^[12] Nebrija distinguished honest and dishonest desire in his Latin equivalents.^[13]

The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as a longing for a good one lacks, and recorded the phrase a medida del deseo “just as one wished”.^[14] The DLE now gives the general sense, the thing desired and, last, sexual desire, the sense that Corominas sees in the Latin source.^[6][3]

Timeline

• 1211–1235 – the Fazienda de Ultramar has aver deseo.^[4][10]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo, Corominas's first record.^[3][5]
• c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio has the form deseyo.^[11][2]
• c. 1254 – the Fuero Juzgo writes desseos.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin desiderium among his equivalents.^[13]
• 1515 – first record in the Americas, from Tierra Firme.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records a medida del deseo.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. desire, wish: the movement of the feelings towards something one longs for: Tenía un gran deseo de volver a su pueblo.^[6][1]
2. The act of desiring.^[6]
3. The object of desire.^[6][16]
4. Sexual desire, lust.^[6][16]

Word family

• desear
• deseoso
• indeseable

Related words

• desidia
• desiderativo
• Portuguese desejo
• Catalan desig

Usage notes

Arder en deseos de algo means “to long for something passionately”.^[6][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 180
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 460
4. ^ a b c d Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. deseo
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. deseo
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. deseo
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2212
8. ^ 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, 85
9. ^ 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. sedeō
10. ^ a b c Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. deseo
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. deseo
12. ^ 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. deseo
13. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. deseo
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 167
15. ^ 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. deseo
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. deseo