dos

Forms

dos (invariable; as a masculine noun, plural doses)^[2] Old Spanish had a feminine dúes (Cid, Berceo) or dúas (Fuero de Guadalajara, 1219, Sánchez de Vercial, about 1400), later lost.^[3] DEMel records the forms dos, dues, duas, dous and deus.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish dos, inherited from Latin duōs (“two”), the accusative form: as usual, Romance generalised the Latin accusative.^[3][5][1] The /u/ was pronounced as a close /o/ in late Vulgar Latin and merged with the following /o/, as in Old Spanish to and so from tuum and suum.^[3] The old feminine dúes or dúas continues duās, like Portuguese duas and Catalan dues;^[3] Corominas notes that a masculine *dúos, which some (followed by the Academy) deduced from it, never existed.^[3]

The same Latin word is Portuguese dois, Galician dous, Asturian dos, Catalan dos, Occitan dos, French deux, Italian due and Romanian doi.^[6][7][1]

The Latin numeral goes back to Proto-Italic *duō and Proto-Indo-European *dwóh₁, a dual form; cognates include Ancient Greek δύο (dúo) and Old English twā, the source of English “two”.^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the word in a charter of 1055 in Oelschläger's list of first records.^[3] The earliest Spanish text in the CDH is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where the hero plans to fill dos arcas “two chests” with sand.^[9] Charters of 1182 in the CDH still write Latin duos.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 recorded the proverbs quando uno no quiere, dos no barajan “it takes two to quarrel” and compañía de dos, compañía de Dios.^[10] Autoridades (1732) adds that the ochavo coin was once called dos because it was worth two maravedís.^[11][12] The noun also names the card or die with two marks and, in the feminine plural, two o'clock.^[5]

Regional uses include en dos “by halves” in Puerto Rico and Cuba and dos y dos for an ambling gait in Colombia, Cuba and Venezuela.^[13] In Mexico and Honduras del dos is a euphemism for excrement.^[14]

Timeline

• 1055 – first record, in a charter.^[3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses dos and the feminine dúes.^[9][3]
• 1219 – the feminine dúas in the Fuero de Guadalajara.^[3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the numeral.^[15]
• 1541 – first record from the Americas, in Michoacán.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records proverbs with dos.^[10]
• 1732 – Autoridades records dos as an old name of the ochavo.^[11]

Meanings

Numeral

1. two: one more than one; also used as a pronoun.^[5][1]
2. Second in a series: la puerta dos; of days of the month, also a noun: el dos de octubre.^[5][12]

Noun

1. The number two, and the sign that represents it.^[5]
2. A card, die or domino with two marks.^[5]
3. (historical) The ochavo, a copper coin.^[5][12]
4. (feminine plural, las dos) Two o'clock.^[5]

Word family

• dosillo
• entredós

Related words

• dúo
• dual
• dueto
• doble
• Latin duo
• Portuguese dois

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include cada dos por tres “every so often” and de dos en dos “two by two”.^[5][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 370
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 519
4. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. dos
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. dos
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2798
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 2372
8. ^ 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. duo
9. ^ 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. dos
10. ^ 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. 693
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 340
12. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dos
13. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 372
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. dos
15. ^ 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. dos
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. dos
17. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 433