despojar

Forms

despojar (first-person singular present despojo, first-person singular preterite despojé, past participle despojado)^[1] Old Spanish wrote despoiar, and a dialect variant despujar or despullar occurs in Berceo's manuscripts and a 13th-century Bible translation; the DCECH takes despullar to be Leonese.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish despoiar, inherited from Latin dēspoliō (“to rob, plunder”).^[4][5][6][1] The Latin verb is formed from dē- and spoliō (“to strip, rob”), which comes from spolium (“skin of an animal; booty”).^[4][7][8] The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *spoli(o)- (“skin, hide”) and Proto-Indo-European *spol(H)-i(o)- (“what is split, stripped off”).^[9]

The word is common to the Romance languages: Catalan despullar, Aragonese despullar, Occitan despolhar, French dépouiller, Italian spogliare and Romanian despuia.^[4][10][11] The French verb, first as despoillier, shows that already in imperial times the Latin compound had come to mean “to strip of clothing” as well as “to plunder”, a sense most of its Romance descendants share.^[12] Portuguese despojar was taken from Spanish by the 16th century; the native Portuguese word for undressing was despir, and debulhar (“to thresh”) continues the Latin verb with a change of prefix.^[4][13][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel's first records are documents of San Juan de Burgos of 1200 with despoiar and despoiaua;^[15] Corominas gives a charter of 1215 and Berceo.^[2][4][5] In the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) Joseph's brothers despoiaronle el palio “stripped him of his cloak” before throwing him into the pit, and the Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250) has a law on the man who strips another naked, despoiare a desnudas.^[16]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century the verb could take the thing removed as its object: Berceo's Despojaron las sábanas que cubrién el altar “they took off the sheets that covered the altar”; this construction reappears in Golden Age poetry, perhaps imitating Latin.^[4] The reflexive despojarse “to undress” never became as usual in Castilian as in Catalan, Occitan, French and Italian, though it occurs in the Gran Conquista de Ultramar and the Celestina.^[4] Alfonso X already uses despojarse of taking off garments, beside the main sense “to deprive someone violently of what he has”.^[15] Covarrubias in 1611 speaks of stripping an enemy of his arms in war and of depriving someone of a dignity by a judge's authority.^[17] Autoridades added a legal sense, to take away a possession by judgment for its lawful owner, which the Academy kept to the 19th century; the later editions give the reflexive “to give something up voluntarily” and the ascetic phrase despojarse del hombre viejo.^[18][19][20] In the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico it means to rid someone of bad luck with a ritual of popular religion or santería.^[21][22][23] In Andalusia it is said of olive trees shedding their flowers.^[24]

Timeline

• 1200 – despoiar in documents of San Juan de Burgos.^[2]
• 1215 – the charter Corominas gives as first record.^[4][5]
• c. 1230 – Berceo uses the verb, also with the thing removed as object.^[4][3]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General estoria uses despojarse of taking off clothes.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin expolio, dispolio and exuo.^[25]
• 1540 – first record in the Americas, in Peru.^[26]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it and the noun despojo.^[17]
• 1732 – Autoridades records the legal sense.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin despoliare.^[20]

Meanings

Verb

1. To despoil, deprive someone violently of what they have or enjoy, with de for the thing taken: Los bandidos despojaron al viajero de su dinero.^[6][1]
2. To strip something of what accompanies, covers or completes it.^[6][27]
3. To extract from a book or other object of study the data considered of interest.^[6]
4. (reflexive) To undress, take off a garment.^[6][27]
5. (reflexive) To divest oneself of something voluntarily: Se despojó de todas sus tierras.^[6][1]
6. (Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico) To free someone of bad luck by a ritual of santería.^[21][22]

Word family

• despojo
• despojamiento
• despojador

Related words

• espolio
• Latin spolium
• Catalan despullar

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. despojar
3. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 185
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 478
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. despojar
6. ^ 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. despojar
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. despoliare
11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2222
12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
13. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro
14. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. desbulhar
15. ^ a b c 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. despojar
16. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. despojar
17. ^ 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. 662
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 222
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 254
20. ^ 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. 374
21. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
22. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org
23. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr
24. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 224
25. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 333
26. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
27. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. despojar