duro

Forms

duro (feminine dura, masculine plural duros, feminine plural duras, superlative durísimo)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin dūrus (“hard”).^[2][3][4][1] Old Spanish had the same form, duro.^[1][5]

The same word is Portuguese duro, Galician duro, Catalan dur, Occitan dur, French dur, Italian duro, Sardinian duru and Romanian dur.^[6][7][1] The adverbs adur, de dur and a duro “hardly, with difficulty”, frequent in Berceo, are explained by Corominas as a cross of the last two phrases with a preliterary adverb *dur, from dūrē (“harshly”).^[2] a duras penas arose from a duras combined with apenas.^[2]

The origin of the Latin word is disputed.^[8] De Vaan and Wiktionary derive it from *duh₂-ró- (“long”), which is also the source of Ancient Greek δηρός (dērós, “long”) and Sanskrit दूर (dūrá, “far, long”).^[9][1] Wiktionary notes that this meets semantic problems, while De Vaan holds that the verb dūrō developed from “to be hard” to “to endure, last”.^[1][9] The OLD and Gómez de Silva prefer an older form *drūros, connected with Lithuanian drūtas (“strong”) and Irish dron (“firm”), from the root of words for “tree” and “wood”, but the dissimilation it requires is not otherwise attested.^[10][11][12]

The noun for the coin is a clipping of peso duro, the silver peso worth twenty reales.^[13][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to a charter of 1205 in Oelschläger's list, and to Berceo.^[2][3] In Berceo it also means “bad, evil” and, of a rope, “strong”; the Libro de Alexandre has en duro punto “at an evil hour”.^[2] Alfonso X's prose uses it of hard things such as stones and metals, of bodies hardened to toil, of harsh terms and of cruel anger.^[15]

Semantic evolution

The figurative senses “hard to bear”, “cruel” and “stubborn” were present from the start; the Libro de buen amor already speaks of pesos duros.^[5][2] Autoridades (1732) defines duro as what is solid and breaks with difficulty, then by likeness stale bread and hard-boiled eggs, and figuratively “unbearable” and “cruel”.^[16]

As a noun duro named the silver peso of twenty reales in Domínguez (1846) and in the Academy's 1869 edition.^[17][14] The DLE now defines it, for Spain, as the five-peseta coin.^[4] The 1869 edition also records the adverb, ¡dale duro! “hit him hard!”.^[14]

In the Americas duro means “drunk” in Mexico and Uruguay and “stingy” in many countries, duro y parejo means “steadily and hard”, and as an adverb it means “loudly” in Central America and the Caribbean.^[18][19] In Panama a duro is a frozen soft drink.^[4][19]

Timeline

• 1205 – first record, in a charter.^[2][3]
• c. 1230–1260 – Berceo uses duro and the adverbs adur and de dur.^[2][5]
• 1250–1280 – Alfonso X's prose has the physical and the figurative senses.^[15]
• 1438 – first record of endurecer, and dureza follows in 1490.^[3]
• 1533 – first record in the Americas, a duras penas in Nicaragua.^[20]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it “hard, cruell, niggardly”.^[21]
• 1846 – Domínguez records the noun for the silver coin of twenty reales.^[17]
• 1869 – the Academy records the coin and the adverb duro.^[14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. hard: resisting cutting, scratching, pressure or a change of shape.^[4][1]
2. Less soft or tender than it should be, as stale bread or a hard bed.^[4][22]
3. tough, resilient: standing up well to fatigue.^[4][1]
4. Harsh, severe, lacking gentleness: una crítica muy dura.^[4][1]
5. Strict, uncompromising, hard to tolerate, as la línea dura of a party.^[4]
6. Cruel, violent, unfeeling.^[4][1]
7. stubborn, obstinate.^[4]
8. stingy, giving only with reluctance.^[4][19]
9. Of style or drawing: stiff, rigid.^[4]
10. (Bolivia, Mexico, Uruguay) drunk.^[4][18]

Adverb

1. Hard, with force: trabajar duro.^[23][22]
2. (Central America, Caribbean, Colombia) Loudly.^[19]

Noun

1. (Spain) A five-peseta coin; formerly the silver peso of twenty reales.^[4][14]
2. (Panama) A frozen soft drink.^[4][19]

Word family

• dureza
• durillo
• endurecer
• cabeciduro

Related words

• durar
• duramen
• Latin dūrus
• Portuguese duro

Usage notes

Set phrases include a duras penas “with great difficulty” and a las duras y a las maduras “in good times and bad”.^[23][1] A separate word duro, the Taíno duho, a low carved seat of the caciques, survives in Venezuela as a wooden stool.^[2][24][25]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 538
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. duro
4. ^ 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. duro
5. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. s.v. duro
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ 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, 221
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. duro
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 241
12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. dur
13. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. duro
14. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 293
15. ^ 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. duro
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 353
17. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 649
18. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 374
19. ^ a b c d e Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. duro
20. ^ 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. duro
21. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 123
22. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. duro
23. ^ 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. 404
24. ^ Alvarado, Lisandro (1921), Glosario de voces indígenas de Venezuela, Caracas: Victoria, p. 133
25. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 584