embarazo

Forms

embarazo m (plural embarazos)^[1]

Etymology

It is a deverbal noun from Spanish embarazar (“to hinder, obstruct”).^[2][3][4]

Corominas takes the verb from the Leonese or Galician-Portuguese embaraçar (“to hinder”), derived from baraça (“snare; cord, string”), a noun found only in Portuguese, Galician and western Leonese; the first sense of the verb was “to tie up, entangle”.^[4] He notes that the verb is missing from Spanish texts before the second half of the 15th century, and that its old spelling with ⟨ç⟩, a voiceless sound where a native Castilian word would have had a voiced one, confirms that it came from the west.^[4] The French and Italian verbs are later and, in his view, came from the Iberian Peninsula, so he rejects the derivation from *barra (“bar”) proposed by Diez and accepted by Cuervo.^[4] The DHLF likewise takes embarrasser (1570–1571) from the Spanish verb.^[5] Gómez de Silva instead derives the Spanish verb from imbarazzare, from an older Italian verb meaning “to bar”, and García de Diego also places it with the word for “bar”.^[6][7]

Corominas considers the origin of the Galician-Portuguese noun uncertain, and rejects the Arabic مرسة (marasa, “thin rope”) proposed by Sousa and Eguílaz, since an initial /m/ would not have become /b/, and thinks it probably pre-Roman, perhaps Celtic, comparing barr (“tuft, crest”).^[4] The Portuguese dictionaries of Cunha, Machado and Houaiss still derive the noun from that Arabic word.^[8][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record of the noun is about 1460, in the chronicle of Álvaro de Luna.^[4][3] The CDH has it a few years earlier in Santillana's Coplas contra don Álvaro de Luna (before 1453), in the sense “hindrance, bond”: rronpió todas las presiones, / ligaduras, opresiones, / enbargos y enbaraços “he broke all the prisons, bonds, oppressions, hindrances and obstacles”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

For three centuries the word meant an obstacle or difficulty: Nebrija gives the Latin implicatio and impedimentum as its equivalents, and Autoridades defines it only as an impediment that holds back an action, quoting Cervantes.^[12][13] The sense “pregnancy” is used in medical texts from the 16th century, according to the DTME, and entered the Academy's dictionary in 1817, as the condition of a pregnant woman and its duration.^[14][15] In 1846 Domínguez added the senses “awkward situation” and “shyness, confusion when speaking”, and the medical embarazo gástrico, an upset of the stomach.^[16]

Today the DLE lists, in this order, an obstacle, the state of a pregnant woman, and a lack of ease in manners or actions; in everyday use the pregnancy sense is the main one.^[2][17] In Mexico embarazo de urnas is the stuffing of ballot boxes with false votes.^[18]

Timeline

• 1264–1269 – DEMel lists the form anbaraso in the Repartimiento de Jerez.^[19]
• 1300–1305 – the Libro del cavallero Cifar has embaraços, in a copy of the late 15th century.^[11]
• before 1453 – Santillana's Coplas contra don Álvaro de Luna.^[11]
• c. 1457 – Pero Tafur's Andanças e viajes.^[11]
• c. 1460 – the chronicle of Álvaro de Luna, Corominas's first record.^[4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: Embaraço. implicatio. impedimentum.^[12]
• 1515 – the first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[20]
• 16th century – the gynaecological sense “pregnancy” appears.^[14]
• 1732 – Autoridades defines only the sense “impediment”.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds “pregnancy”.^[15]
• 1846 – Domínguez records embarazo gástrico.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. An obstacle, hindrance, difficulty: La lluvia no fue embarazo para seguir la marcha.^[2][1][21]
2. pregnancy: the state of a pregnant woman, and the time it lasts: Su tercer embarazo fue el más tranquilo.^[2][1][14]
3. awkwardness, embarrassment; a lack of ease in manners or actions: Respondió con cierto embarazo.^[2][1][21]
4. (Mexico) embarazo de urnas: the stuffing of ballot boxes.^[18]

Related words

• embarazar
• embarazada
• embarazoso
• desembarazo
• French embarras

Usage notes

Set phrases include prueba de embarazo “pregnancy test” and interrupción voluntaria del embarazo “abortion”.^[1][22] Embarazo ectópico or extrauterino is a pregnancy outside the womb.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. embarazo
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. embarazar
4. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 555
5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. embarrasser
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 253
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 938
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 471
9. ^ Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. 383
10. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. baraço
11. ^ 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. embarazo
12. ^ a b 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. embarazo
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 381
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. embarazo
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 344
16. ^ 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. 667
17. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. embarazo
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. embarazo
19. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. embarazo
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. embarazo
21. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. embarazo
22. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses