engañar

Forms

engañar (first-person singular present engaño, first-person singular preterite engañé, past participle engañado)^[1] Old Spanish texts write engannar, with ⟨nn⟩ for the palatal nasal, beside engañar; the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca and the Libro de Apolonio have the form enganyar.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish engañar, inherited from Late Latin ingannāre (“to mock, make fun of”).^[5][6][1] Corominas notes that this Vulgar Latin verb is recorded shortly before the 9th century, and Wiktionary places the record in a gloss, the Reichenau Glossary.^[5][1] The DLE and the BDELC star the form as reconstructed Vulgar Latin.^[6][5]

In Latin the verb is formed from Latin in- + *gannō, from ganniō (“to yelp, whimper, snarl”), a verb that imitated the cries of dogs and foxes and also meant “to grumble” and “to banter”.^[5][6][7][8] The REW cites Latin gannator (“mocker”) beside it.^[9]

The same verb is Portuguese enganar, Catalan enganyar, Occitan enganar, Italian ingannare and Romanian îngâna “to mimic in mockery”; Old French enjaner later died out.^{[10][9][11][12]} Coromines gives Old Catalan enganar as the usual medieval form, with a future engannarei in a charter of 1090.^[11]

De Vaan finds the closest comparanda of ganniō in Slavic words for murmuring and speaking through the nose, such as Russian гугнивый (gugnivyj), and treats both as onomatopoeic.^[13][1] Pokorny's wider set of Indo-European words for “to mock” he considers less likely, since in Latin the sense “to growl” seems to come first.^[13][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is in the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (c. 1215, in a 14th-century copy), where the devil hopes enganyar the saint so that she drowns at sea.^[4][2] Corominas dates the verb 1220–1250, in the period of Berceo, whose Loores de Nuestra Señora say that the serpent engañó the first parents.^[5][3][4] The sense there is “to make someone believe what is false”, the main sense ever since.^[3][14]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose of the 1250s–1280s already has the three branches of the modern verb: “to lead someone to believe what is not so”, “to distract, keep busy” (of hawks and their prey), and the reflexive “to be mistaken”.^[14][3] The noun engaño is older in the record than the verb, from 1073, and desengañar follows in 1251.^[5]

Autoridades defined the verb as making another believe what is not true by false words or deeds, and took it, wrongly, for a derivative of engaño.^[15] The Academy's 1899 dictionary listed the senses “to practise fraud in dealings”, “to create an illusion” (a street that seems to narrow in the distance) and “to while away” (engañar el tiempo, el sueño, el hambre), and gave the etymon ingannare.^[16] The DLE now also gives “to be unfaithful to one's partner” and “to make a food more appetizing”.^[6]

In the Dominican Republic the verb also means “to deflower a woman”, and in the Canaries “to leave a girlfriend pregnant under a promise of marriage”.^[17][18] Judeo-Spanish keeps the verb with the senses “to deceive, to mislead”.^[19]

Timeline

• 1073 – first record of the noun engaño.^[5]
• c. 1215 – enganyar in the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (in a 14th-century copy).^[4]
• 1220–1250 – Corominas's date for the verb, in the period of Berceo.^[5]
• 1251 – first record of desengañar.^[5]
• 1254 – the Fuero Juzgo uses enganna “deceives”.^[14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates it with Latin decipio, fallo and fraudo.^[20]
• 1532 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[21]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the etymon ingannare for the first time.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also reflexive) To make someone believe that something false is true; to deceive, trick: No te dejes engañar por su sonrisa.^[6][1]
2. (transitive) To seduce someone with flattery and lies.^[6]
3. (transitive) To be unfaithful to one's partner, to cheat on: Descubrió que su novio la engañaba.^[6][1]
4. (transitive) To create an illusion, especially an optical one: Desde lejos, la distancia engaña.^[6][22]
5. (transitive) To ease a need or feeling for a while: engañar el hambre con un café.^[6]
6. (transitive) To make a food more appetizing.^[6]
7. (fencing) To draw the opponent into a trap by withdrawing the blade as they try to parry at the end of a feint.^[6]
8. (reflexive) To be mistaken: Si no me engaño, ya nos conocíamos.^[6][1]

Word family

• engañador
• engaño
• engañoso
• desengañar
• autoengañarse
• engañabobos

Related words

• gañir
• Latin ganniō
• Portuguese enganar
• Italian ingannare

Usage notes

Las apariencias engañan “appearances are deceptive” is a set phrase, and ser malo de engañar “to be hard to fool” was recorded by the Academy in 1843.^[1][22][23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. engañar
3. ^ a b c d Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 216
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. engañar
5. ^ 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. engañar
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. engañar
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. engañar
8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. *ingannare
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
11. ^ a b 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, 346
12. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom, p. s.v. *ingannare
13. ^ 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
14. ^ 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. engañar
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. engañar
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 397
17. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. engañar
18. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. engañar
19. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. engañar
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 344
21. ^ 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. engañar
22. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. engañar
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 297