echar

Forms

echar (first-person singular present echo, first-person singular preterite eché, past participle echado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish echar, inherited from Vulgar Latin *iectāre, a popular variant of Latin iactāre (“to throw, hurl; to toss about”), the frequentative of iaciō (“to throw”).^[2][3][1] The Academy's dictionary and most other sources simply give the classical form.^[4][5] Corominas notes that the Spanish and Portuguese verbs could phonetically continue classical iactāre, but since the other Romance forms point to *iectāre, Spanish and Portuguese are not likely to be exceptions.^[2] He follows Meyer-Lübke in explaining the ⟨e⟩ by the influence of the initial /j/, and mentions an older view that took the form from ēiectāre (“to throw out”) with loss of the first syllable, supported by Romanian aiepta (“to throw”) of Transylvania.^[2][6]

The same verb is Italian gettare, French jeter, Occitan getar, Catalan gitar, Aragonese itar and Portuguese deitar, older geitar.^[2][7][8] Already in Latin the verb had the figurative sense “to boast”, from which Spanish later took the learned jactar, its doublet.^[2][3][1]

De Vaan traces iaciō to Proto-Italic *jak-i- (“to throw”) and to the aorist Proto-Indo-European *(H)ieh₁- (“to throw, let go”), with the Greek cognate Ancient Greek ἵημι (híēmi, “to send, let go, throw”).^[9] Covarrubias already derived the word from Latin iacio, as if it were spelt ⟨iechar⟩.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the verb first in the Glosas Silenses, of the second half of the 10th century, in the spelling zetare, and in the form echar in a charter of 1125, the Fuero de Medinaceli.^[2][3] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), it already means “to throw out, banish”: Mio Cid tells Álvar Fáñez „¡Albricia, Álbar Fáñez, ca echados somos de tierra!” “good news, Álvar Fáñez, for we have been cast out of the land!”.^[11] The poem's echar de tierra is the usual expression for “to exile”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish already used echar for throwing, expelling, putting or placing, a plant putting out leaves, giving off light, pouring water, imposing taxes and laying the blame on someone; reflexive echarse meant “to lie down, go to bed” in the Cid.^[13][12] Alfonso X's prose uses it also for expelling a thing from the body and for deposing a bishop.^[14]

Covarrubias listed many set phrases in 1611: echar mano “to draw the sword” and “to seize someone”, echar suertes “to cast lots”, echar chispas “to fume with anger” and echarse en la cama “to lie down”.^[10] Autoridades defined the verb as throwing or putting something away from oneself, driving someone out by force, and a plant sprouting.^[15] In the 1884 edition the Academy first gave its etymology, from Latin iactare.^[16]

The phrase echar menos, and later echar de menos “to miss”, has a separate source: it adapts Galician-Portuguese achar menos, in which achar corresponds to Spanish hallar.^[3][2] In the Americas the verb appears from 1523, in Cuba.^[17] Slang in Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Colombia and Chile uses it for “to kill”.^[18] In Argentina and Puerto Rico it means “to set an animal on”, or to put an animal or person forward as better than another.^[19]

Timeline

• 950–1000 – the Glosas Silenses gloss with the spelling zetare.^[2]
• 1125 – the form echar in the Fuero de Medinaceli.^[2][3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses echar de tierra “to banish” and reflexive echarse “to lie down”.^[11][12]
• 1202 – the Cortes de Benavente, the first record that survives in a contemporary copy.^[11]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the verb for expelling from the body.^[14]
• c. 1400 – the compound echacuervos “contemptible impostor” is first recorded.^[3]
• 1517 – echar menos “to miss”, in a letter of a secretary of Cardinal Cisneros.^[2][3]
• 1523 – the first record from the Americas, in Cuba.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias lists phrases such as echar mano and echar suertes.^[10]
• 1786 – echar de menos appears, in Moratín.^[2][3]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology for the first time.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To throw or cast something so that it lands somewhere: Echó la red al agua.^[4][1]
2. To give off or emit: La chimenea echa humo.^[4][1]
3. To put or drop something into a place: Echa la carta en el buzón.^[4]
4. To throw someone out, expel: Lo echaron del bar.^[4][1]
5. To dismiss someone from a post.^[4][1]
6. Of a plant, to put out roots, leaves, flowers or fruit; also intransitive.^[4][1]
7. Of a person or animal, to begin to grow a natural part: El niño está echando los dientes.^[4]
8. To put male animals with females for breeding.^[4]
9. To put on, apply or add: Échale sal a la sopa.^[4][1]
10. To turn a key or slide a bolt to lock something.^[4][1]
11. To impose a tax or charge.^[4]
12. To lean or tilt; reflexive echarse, to lie down: Se echó en el sofá.^[4][1]
13. (Mexico, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Colombia, Chile; slang) To kill someone.^[18]

Word family

• echazón
• desechar
• echadizo
• echadero
• echacuervos

Related words

• jactar
• jactancia
• Latin iactō
• Portuguese deitar
• Catalan gitar
• French jeter

Usage notes

Echar de menos and echar en falta mean “to miss”; the first goes back to Portuguese achar menos.^[5][3] Echar menos, without de, is still used in Colombia, rural western Argentina and the Dominican Republic.^[2] With a and an infinitive the verb means “to start”: echar a correr.^[4][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 540
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. echar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. echar
5. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. echar
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. jectare
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. jactare
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 3580
9. ^ 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. iaciō
10. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 700
11. ^ 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. echar
12. ^ a b c Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. echar
13. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 203
14. ^ 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. echar
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 356
16. ^ 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. 406
17. ^ a b 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. echar
18. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. echar
19. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 375