dulce

Forms

dulce m or f (masculine and feminine plural dulces, superlative dulcísimo)^[1] Old Spanish had duz and duce (Juan Ruiz, the Calila, Nebrija) and dulz (Berceo); duce is used by 16th-century chroniclers of Mexico and is still said in Mexico, Costa Rica, Colombia, Asturias and Santander.^[2] Other medieval forms are dulçe, dolç and duse.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin dulcis (“sweet”).^[2][5][6] The same Latin word is Portuguese doce, Galician doce, Catalan dolç, Occitan dous, French doux, Italian dolce and Romanian dulce.^[2][7]

The ⟨u⟩ of the Spanish word, against the ⟨o⟩ of the other Romance languages, led the REW to treat it as a learned word, and Wiktionary calls it a semi-learned borrowing.^[7][1] Corominas rejects this for so ordinary a word: Spanish has the same treatment in surco, cumbre, azufre and buitre, where the /l/ became a semivowel that closed the /u/ before it.^[2] In his view the original forms were duz and duce, and the /l/ was restored not as a Latinism but through the influence of the educated classes, as in alto and palpar.^[2]

The Latin adjective goes back to Proto-Italic *dulkwi-, and its only clear cognate is Ancient Greek γλυκύς (glukús, “sweet”).^[8] The two are often traced to a form Proto-Indo-European *dl̥kús, but the loss of the second /u/ in Latin and the Greek /gl-/ are hard to explain, and Wiktionary suggests a borrowing from a shared unknown source.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the Glosas Emilianenses, of about 950.^[2][5] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) uses it of the Cid's sleep: „un sueño·l' priso dulce, tan bien se adurmió” “a sweet sleep took him, he slept so well”.^[4][9] In the same poem espadas dulces e tajadores are, in Menéndez Pidal's reading, swords of well-tempered steel.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In Alfonso X's prose the adjective already has the taste of honey, the sense “pleasant, gentle” (dulces palabras), “affectionate” and, of metals, “free of impurities” (brass is más dulce than copper).^[10] Water that is not salty has been dulce since the 13th century: the Semejanza del mundo says that rain water is sweet although the sea is salt.^[4] Covarrubias set dulce against amargo and agro, noted that poets use it much, and cited Henry IV's motto Agrodulce.^[11]

As a noun, the word is dated from 1485 in the CORDE, and DICCA-XV dates it from 1490.^[12] Autoridades defines dulces as dry confections of fruit cooked in syrup, coated in sugar and dried, as against liquid almíbares.^[13] The 1884 edition of the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology and defines the noun as a dish made with sugar.^[14]

In Central America dulce is unrefined cane sugar (panela), and in Mexico a sweet or candy.^[15][16][6] Dulce de leche, milk and sugar cooked slowly until thick, was described from Argentina in 1910.^[17][6] The given name Dulce comes from the adjective, and English has borrowed the noun.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 950 – the Glosas Emilianenses.^[2][5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid: un sueño·l' priso dulce.^[4][2]
• 13th century – Berceo writes dulz, and dulzor appears in his works and in the Libro de Alexandre.^[2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario compares a taste to honey: sabor dulce como miel.^[10]
• c. 1400 – dulzaina, the musical instrument, appears as duçaina in the Cancionero de Baena, from Old French.^[2]
• 1490 – first record of dulzura.^[5]
• 1495 – Nebrija still admits duce and records endulzar.^[2][5]
• 1550 – Guatemala: un golfo de mar que llaman el golfo duçe “a gulf of the sea that they call the sweet gulf”, from its fresh water.^[18]
• 1605 – Dulcinea in the Quijote.^[5]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records Henry IV's motto Agrodulce.^[11]
• 1817 – the Academy has the painting sense “soft in drawing or colour” and the noun for fruit preserved and dried.^[19]

Meanings

Adjective

1. sweet: of a taste, gentle and pleasant, like that of honey or sugar.^[6][1]
2. Having a sweet taste: pan dulce.^[6]
3. Not sour or salty compared with others of its kind: agua dulce “fresh water”, almendras dulces.^[6][1]
4. Of food: lacking salt, bland.^[6]
5. Pleasant, agreeable, mild.^[6][1]
6. Of a person: naturally gentle, kind and docile.^[6][1]
7. Of a metal, especially iron: free of impurities: hierro dulce “soft iron”.^[6][10]

Noun

1. A food made with sugar, a dessert or sweet; in Mexico and Central America also a candy.^[6][1][15]
2. Fruit or another food cooked or preserved in syrup or sugar: dulce de membrillo “quince paste”.^[6][1]
3. (Costa Rica, Guatemala) Unrefined cane sugar in loaves, panela.^[6][15]
4. (in the plural, card games) In tresillo, the points a player collects or pays.^[6]

Word family

• dulcero
• dulcería
• dulcinea
• dulzón
• dulzura
• endulzar
• agridulce
• dulcemente
• dulcificar
• dulzor
• dulcedumbre
• dulzarrón

Related words

• dulzaina
• edulcorar
• Latin dulcis
• Portuguese doce
• Catalan dolç

Usage notes

Set phrases include dulce de leche, dulce de almíbar “fruit in syrup” and the proverb a nadie le amarga un dulce “nobody turns down a treat”.^[6][20][1] The superlative is dulcísimo;^[1] dulcemente is the adverb.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 535
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. dulce
4. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. dulce
5. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dulce
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. dulce
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2792
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 222
10. ^ 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. dulce
11. ^ 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, 697
12. ^ 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. dulce
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. dulce
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 403
15. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. dulce
16. ^ Gagini, Carlos (1893), Diccionario de barbarismos y provincialismos de Costa Rica, San José: Tipografía Nacional, p. 275
17. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 177
18. ^ 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. duce
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 338
20. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 202