enojar

Forms

enojar (first-person singular present enojo, first-person singular preterite enojé, past participle enojado)^[1] Berceo also has enoyar, and Old Spanish texts have enochar and eñojar.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

Corominas takes it as borrowed from Old Occitan enojar (“to bore, annoy”), from Vulgar Latin inodiāre (“to inspire disgust or horror”), a verb drawn from the Classical phrase in odio esse alicui (“to be hated by someone”), with odium (“hatred”).^[2][5] The Vulgar Latin verb occurs in an early Bible translation, an African inscription and the Tironian notes.^[2] The DLE derives it directly from the Vulgar Latin verb.^[6] Wiktionary agrees with Corominas.^[1]

The native outcome would have had ⟨y⟩, as in hoyo, poyo and moyo, and Berceo's enoyar seems to be that form.^[2] The form with ⟨j⟩, the source of the modern word, spread through the troubadours' poetry, above all the satirical genre called enueg.^[2] It cannot be a Catalanism, since Catalan has enutjar, nor is it due to Spanish ojo, as Baist thought.^[2] Corominas thinks the native form probably shaped the vowel of the borrowed one, which never has the diphthong ⟨ue⟩ or ⟨uo⟩ common in the Occitan forms.^[2]

The same Latin verb is Italian annoiare, French ennuyer, the Catalan verb and Portuguese enjoar (“to nauseate”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The BDELC dates the word to 1220–1250, and the DCECH to Berceo.^[5][2] The earliest CDH hit is Berceo's Vida de San Millán (c. 1230, in an 18th-century copy): the saint was „fuert' enojado” of this temporal life, that is, weary of it.^[7] In the Loores de Nuestra Señora the poet confesses that the canonical hours „m' enojavan” “bored me” in church.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the verb often meant “to weary, sate”: the 13th-century Purgatorio de San Patricio renders Latin satis admirans by „non se podían enojar de catar” “they could not tire of looking”.^[2] By 1732 Autoridades gave “to anger, provoke” as the first sense, called “to bother” little used, and “to harm, offend” old.^[8] The 1884 dictionary added the reflexive sense of winds and seas growing rough.^[9]

In Spain the verb has become literary, replaced by enfadar, but it is still the everyday word in the Americas, as in Argentina, Venezuela and Mexico, in line with Portuguese, Galician and Asturian.^[2] The first record from the Americas is from Cuba in 1520.^[10]

Timeline

• c. 1230 – Berceo's Vida de San Millán has enojado “weary”.^[7][5]
• c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio uses enojar.^[7][4]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's prose uses it for “to anger”.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija distinguishes enojarse con ira and enojarse con hastío, anger and boredom.^[12]
• 1520 – first record in the Americas, in Cuba.^[10]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains it as “to enrage, irritate”.^[13]
• 1732 – Autoridades gives the senses “to anger” and “to bother”.^[8]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary adds the sense used of winds and seas.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, mostly reflexive) To anger, make cross;^[6][1] enojarse: to get angry: No te enojes conmigo.^[6][1]
2. (transitive, also reflexive) To annoy, bother.^[6]
3. (reflexive, of the wind or sea) To grow rough or stormy.^[6]

Word family

• enojo
• enojoso
• enojadizo
• desenojar

Related words

• odio
• French ennuyer

Usage notes

Enojar is the usual word for “to anger” in Latin America; in Spain enfadar is more common and enojar sounds literary.^[2][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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, 635
3. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. inodiare
4. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 217
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. enojar
6. ^ 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. enojar
7. ^ 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. enojar
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. enojar
9. ^ 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. 432
10. ^ 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. enojar
11. ^ 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. enojar
12. ^ 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. enojar
13. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 743
14. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. enojar