desfigurar

Forms

desfigurar (first-person singular present desfiguro, first-person singular preterite desfiguré, past participle desfigurado)^[1] An Old Spanish spelling desfegurar occurs in the Gran conquista de Ultramar (c. 1295).^[2]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish des- + figura + -ar, “to undo the shape”.^[1][3][4] Corominas lists it among the derivatives of the noun, and DICCA-XV derives it from figurar.^[5][6][7] The DLE and Moliner give instead Latin dēfigūrāre;^[8][9] the REW records that Latin verb as the source of French défigurer,^[10] while Du Cange takes the Medieval Latin verb from the French one.^[11]

The noun is from Latin figūra (“shape, form”), from fingō (“to shape, mould”).^[5][12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest CDH hit is in Alfonso X's Setenario (1252–1270, in an early 14th-century copy), on those who would desfigurar the shape that God made and gave life to.^[13] The first hit in a contemporary manuscript is the astrological Picatrix of 1256: whoever is born under a certain degree sera desfigurado & desauenturado “will be disfigured and unfortunate”.^[13] Corominas dates it to about 1260, in the Partidas.^[6][5]

Semantic evolution

In medieval texts the verb applies mostly to faces and bodies marred by grief, wounds or illness: in the Libro de buen amor the wolf returns the donkey desfigurado, without heart or ears.^[13] Covarrubias in 1611 defines it as undoing the shape, and the pronominal as changing one's face for the worse;^[14] desfigurado is someone who has lost his figure through illness or anger.^[14] Nebrija had rendered it with Latin deformo and diffingo.^[7]

The 1732 Diccionario de Autoridades has three senses: to mar a face, to disguise or conceal under another appearance, and to obscure the outline of things.^[3] The Academy's 1884 edition added the sense of telling something with its true circumstances altered, and the pronominal “to change countenance under a strong emotion”, the five senses the DLE still gives.^[15][8] Alemany records an American noun desfiguro in Chile and Mexico.^[4]

Timeline

• 1252–1270 – Alfonso X's Setenario (in an early 14th-century copy), the first CDH hit.^[13]
• 1256 – the participle desfigurado in the Picatrix, the first hit in a contemporary manuscript.^[13]
• c. 1260 – the Partidas, the first record Corominas gives.^[6][5]
• 1330–1343 – the Libro de buen amor (in a copy of about 1415).^[13]
• 1492 – Nebrija renders Latin deformo with it.^[7]
• 1556 – the first record from the Americas, in Peru.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as “to undo the shape”.^[14]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records three senses.^[3]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the five senses still in use.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also pronominal) To disfigure: to spoil the features or beauty of a face or body.^[8][1]
2. (transitive) To disguise (disfrazar) one's face, intention or something else under a different appearance.^[8]
3. (transitive) To blur or obscure the shape of something: El humo desfiguraba las torres de la ciudad.^[8][9]
4. (transitive) To distort the facts of something when telling it.^[8][9][1]
5. (pronominal) To change countenance under a shock or a strong emotion.^[8]

Related words

• desfiguración
• figurar
• transfigurar
• configurar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. desfigurar
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 170
4. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 563
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. figura
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 894
7. ^ a b c 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. desfigurar
8. ^ a b c d e f g 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. desfigurar
9. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. desfigurar
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. desfigurar
14. ^ 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. 656
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 366
16. ^ 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. desfigurar