enfermar

Forms

enfermar (first-person singular present enfermo, first-person singular preterite enfermé, past participle enfermado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin īnfirmō (“to weaken”) according to the Academy, Wiktionary and Segura Munguía.^[2][1][3] In Medieval Latin the passive of the verb meant “to be ill”.^[4] Corominas lists the verb among the derivatives of the adjective enfermo, and the Diccionario de Autoridades says it was formed from that adjective.^[5][6]

The Latin verb comes from īnfirmus (“weak, sick”), formed from in- (“not”) and firmus (“firm, strong”).^[7][1] Corominas calls the Spanish adjective a semi-learned descendant of the Latin one.^[5] Wiktionary traces the Latin adjective's base to Proto-Indo-European *dʰer- (“to hold, support”).^[1]

The same Latin verb is Italian infermare, and French infirmer is a learned borrowing of 1370.^[3][8] Spanish once had the learned doublet infirmar, old and legal.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Liber Regum (1194–1211, in a copy of the first quarter of the 13th century) says of King Hezekiah of Judah that he enfermo & uino ad ora de muert “fell ill and came to the hour of death”.^[9] The Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200) uses it of Isaac before his death.^[9] The first sense is “to fall ill”.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Corominas and the Breve diccionario date the verb from Berceo's Milagros.^[5][11] Alfonso X's prose already has a wider range: to make ill (stones that fazen enfermar de malenconia), to weaken, to taint, and to decline, as of a land laid waste by plague.^[12]

In Berceo, the Fueros de Aragón of about 1300, Nebrija and many classical writers the verb is intransitive.^[5] The reflexive enfermarse, found in Lope de Vega, is the usual form in the Americas, Andalusia and Galicia.^[5] The Diccionario de Autoridades has the intransitive “to fall ill”, the transitive “to make ill” and a figurative “to cause harm or ruin”.^[6] Terreros noted that “to weaken” was not very common in Castilian.^[13] The Academy extended the verb to plants in 1884.^[14]

Colloquially the verb also means to annoy or disgust someone, and in Guatemala enfermarse means to become pregnant.^[15] In Cuban billiards it meant to lose all the points but the last.^[16][17]

Timeline

• c. 1194–1211 – the Liber Regum says that Hezekiah enfermo.^[9]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[9]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo's Milagros, Corominas's first record.^[5][11]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has the causative fazen enfermar.^[12]
• 1272–1275 – the General Estoria uses it for “weaken”.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin aegroto as its equivalent.^[18]
• 1545 – the first records from the Americas, in Honduras and the Río de la Plata.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy extends the sense to plants.^[14]
• 1897 – Membreño notes that Hondurans always use the reflexive form.^[20]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To make ill, to sicken: El agua contaminada enfermó a medio pueblo.^[2][1]
2. (transitive) To weaken (debilitar), impair or invalidate.^[2]
3. (intransitive, also reflexive) To fall ill: Mi abuelo enfermó el invierno pasado.^[2][1]
4. (transitive, colloquial) To annoy or disgust.^[15]
5. (Guatemala, reflexive) To become pregnant.^[15]

Word family

• enfermante

Related words

• enfermedad
• enfermero
• enfermo
• firme
• Latin īnfirmus

Usage notes

Enfermar (intransitive) is more usual in Spain, enfermarse in the Americas.^[15][5] The verb takes de for the organ or illness (enfermar del hígado).^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. enfermar
3. ^ a b 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. 264
4. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 615
6. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 462
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. enfermar
10. ^ 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. enfermar
11. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. enfermo
12. ^ 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. enfermar
13. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 40
14. ^ 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. 427
15. ^ a b c d Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. enfermar
16. ^ Pichardo, Esteban (1875), Diccionario provincial casi-razonado de vozes y frases cubanas, 4th ed., La Habana: Imprenta El Trabajo, p. 137
17. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 604
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 344
19. ^ 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. enfermar
20. ^ Membreño, Alberto (1897), Hondureñismos: vocabulario de los provincialismos de Honduras, 2nd ed., Tegucigalpa: Tipografía Nacional, p. 69
21. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. enfermar