desvanecer

Forms

desvanecer (first-person singular present desvanezco, first-person singular preterite desvanecí, past participle desvanecido)^[1] Old Spanish also had esvanecer (San Vicente Ferrer, 1411–1412) and the rare variant avanecerse.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Latin ēvānēscere (“to vanish, fade away”), with the prefix des- in place of the Latin ex-.^{[3][5][6][1][7]} Wiktionary also mentions, as less likely, a Vulgar Latin *disvānēscere.^[1] The learned doublet is evanescente, from the same Latin verb.^[3][1]

The cognates include Portuguese esvaecer, Asturian esvanecer and Galician desvecer (“to lose strength (of wine)”).^[4][1] Catalan esvanir comes from a Vulgar Latin verb with another suffix.^[8] Portuguese desvanecer was borrowed from Spanish, according to Cunha.^[9]

The Latin verb is formed from the prefix and vānēscō (“to vanish”), from vānus (“empty”), the source of vano.^[10][1][3] De Vaan reconstructs *h₁ueh₂-no- or a similar form for the adjective, comparing Sanskrit and Avestan words for “to disappear” and “empty”.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record is in the Moamín of Abraham of Toledo (1250), a book on hunting animals, in a remedy for animals that desuanecieren; the Alfonsine dictionary hesitantly glosses it as “to grow dizzy, lose one's senses”.^[12][13] Corominas and the Breve diccionario date the word only from Nebrija (1495).^[3][5]

Semantic evolution

Late medieval texts use the verb for fainting, desvaneçida de llorar “faint from weeping” in the Cuento de Otas de Roma, and for a swelling that goes down, in a surgical treatise of before 1450.^[2] Covarrubias in 1611 gives “to make vain” by flattery, desvanecerse la cabeza “to feel giddy”, and the sense “to grow proud with favour or wealth”.^[14] Corominas dates the sense “to feel faint” to the late 16th century, and “to make disappear” to Góngora.^[3]

Autoridades starts with the dispersal of a thing until it is lost from sight, as smoke vanishes in the air.^[15] The Academy in 1884 added the loss of strength of wine.^[16] The sense of making someone vain is now obsolete, and in Chile the verb was used of warming liquids.^[6][17]

Timeline

• 1250 – the Moamín uses the verb of sick hunting animals.^[12]
• 1411–1412 – San Vicente Ferrer's sermons have the variant esvanesçer.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin evaneo and evanesco for desvanecerse;^[18] Corominas's first record.^[3][18]
• 1546 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the senses “to make vain” and “to feel giddy”.^[14]
• 1732 – Autoridades derives it from Latin evanescere.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also reflexive) To disperse the particles of one body into another; to fade, especially of a colour: La niebla se desvaneció al salir el sol.^[6][1]
2. (transitive, also reflexive) To dispel, undo or cancel (a doubt, a suspicion).^[6]
3. (transitive) To remove an idea or a memory from the mind.^[6]
4. (obsolete) To make vain or conceited.^[6]
5. (reflexive) To evaporate, to lose its spirit or strength (of wine).^[6]
6. (reflexive, also transitive) To faint, lose consciousness.^[6][1]

Word family

• desvanecimiento
• desvanecido

Related words

• vano
• envanecer
• evanescente
• Latin ēvānēscō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. desvanecer
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 738
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vano
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. desvanecer
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. desvanecer
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. esvanir
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1157
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. desvanecer
13. ^ 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
14. ^ 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. 1, 664
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 241
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 377
17. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 573
18. ^ 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
19. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies