doler

Forms

doler (first-person singular present duelo, first-person singular preterite dolí, past participle dolido)^[1] Old Spanish had a contracted future and conditional, doldré, doldría, which still survives in Spanish America, especially Argentina.^[2] Like other verbs with stressed o, it has ue in the stressed forms of the present: duelo, duela.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish doler, inherited from Latin doleō (“to feel pain, be in pain”).^[2][4][5][1] In Latin the person who felt the pain was originally in the dative, as it still is in Old Latin and in the Spanish construction with an indirect-object pronoun.^[6][7]

The same verb is Portuguese doer, Galician doer, Asturian doler, Aragonese doler, Catalan doldre, Occitan doler, Old French doloir, Italian dolere and Romanian durea.^[8][1][9]

The Latin verb goes back to *doleō, which de Vaan derives from a causative Proto-Indo-European *dolh₁éyeti (“to make split”) of *delh₁- (“to cut, chop”), assuming that pain was felt as “being torn apart”.^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140).^[2][4] In the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (c. 1215, in a 14th-century copy) it has the sense “to grieve, matter to”: el que murie, poco l' dolié, “she grieved little for whoever died”.^[10] Berceo uses the reflexive for pity: women passing by the cross doliénse del Señor.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already has the four modern senses: of a part of the body “to ache”, of a thing “to cause grief”, reflexively “to repent” and “to pity”.^[11] Autoridades (1732) gives “to ache” and “to be loath to do something”.^[3] Salvá's dictionary of 1846 lists the reflexive senses “to repent”, “to regret being unable to do something”, “to pity” and “to complain”, as well as the saying a quien le duele, le duele.^[12] The 1884 edition of the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology.^[13]

In the interior of Argentina dolerse also means “to wither”.^[2] In Chile the DAMER records a rare transitive use, “to mourn someone's death”.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has the verb.^[2][4]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes has se suelen doler, the earliest record in a text not known only from a later copy.^[10]
• 1220–1250 – first record of doliente.^[4]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it of the stomach that aches.^[11]
• 1517 – first record in the Americas, at Santo Domingo: dello se dolió mucho.^[15]
• 1732 – Autoridades notes that the verb changes o to ue in the present.^[3]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive; of a part of the body) To hurt, ache: Me duelen las rodillas.^[5][1]
2. (intransitive; of a thing) To cause grief or distress: Le dolió que no lo invitaran.^[5][1]
3. (reflexive) To repent of something one has done and regret it.^[5][1]
4. (reflexive) To regret being unable to do something, or a natural defect that is not one's fault.^[5]
5. (reflexive) To feel pity (compadecerse) for another's suffering.^[5]
6. (reflexive) To complain and describe one's pain.^[5][1]

Word family

• doliente
• dolido
• dolencia
• condoler
• adolecer

Related words

• dolor
• doloroso
• duelo
• indolente
• Latin doleō
• Portuguese doer

Usage notes

The verb normally takes the person who feels the pain in the dative (me duelen los pies), like Latin mihi dolet.^[5][6] ¡Ahí (le) duele! means that one has found the sore point of a matter.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 513
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, 329
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. doler
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. doler
6. ^ a b c 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. doleō
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 233
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. dolēre
9. ^ 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, 163
10. ^ 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. doler
11. ^ 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. doler
12. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 415
13. ^ 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. 397
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. doler
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. doler