envidar

Forms

envidar (first-person singular present envido, first-person singular preterite envidé, past participle envidado)^[1] Old Spanish texts also write enbidar and embidado;^[2][3] Autoridades insists on ⟨v⟩ because of the Latin source.^[4][2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin invītō (“to entertain, invite; to challenge”), the hereditary doublet of the learned invitar.^[5][6][7][1] Meyer-Lübke notes that the Romance outcomes of the Latin verb mean “to challenge, to bid” almost everywhere, especially in games, while the Latin sense “to invite” passed to convidar, from Vulgar Latin *convītō.^[8][6]

The same verb is Portuguese envidar, Galician envidar, Catalan envidar, Old French envier and Italian invitare.^[9][8] The noun envite “bid” was taken from Catalan envit or Occitan, and the Academy also records a native variant envido.^[5]

De Vaan suggests that the Latin verb is Proto-Italic *wītāje- (“to pursue”) with the prefix in-, from Proto-Indo-European *wih₁-tó- (“pursued”).^[10] The OLD gives the origin as doubtful, and Wiktionary calls it uncertain, noting that some connect it with invocō.^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is in Alfonso X's Estoria de España (c. 1270, in a manuscript of the last quarter of the 13th century): the Roman dictator enuido con enganno a comer a Fridigerno “deceitfully invited Fridigern to dine”.^[4] The Fuero de Béjar (c. 1290–1293) deals with one who enbidar omne a su cassa a comer o a beuer “invites a man to his house to eat or drink”, and the Fuero de Plasencia has the same phrase.^[4][12]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the verb meant “to invite”, mostly in the fueros and the chronicles.^[4][12] Corominas found the gaming sense from 1591, in Percyvall, and in 1605 in the Pícara Justina and the Quijote; it is frequent in the classical writers.^[5] Autoridades defines it as a gaming term, to provoke another to accept the stake in order to win it from him, and records envidar de falso, to bid with few points while pretending to have many, and figuratively to press an offer on someone while hoping it will be refused.^[3] Terreros gives French envier and Italian invitare as equivalents.^[13]

The DLE keeps “to invite” as an obsolete sense.^[7] Today the verb belongs to card games such as mus, where a player bids on a hand; in truco it is to call envido.^[14][15]

Timeline

• c. 1270 – first record, “to invite”, in the Estoria de España.^[4]
• c. 1290–1293 – the Fuero de Béjar uses enbidar for inviting someone to one's house.^[4]
• 1566 – first record in the Americas, a card player in Yucatán.^[16]
• 1591 – Percyvall records the gaming sense.^[5]
• 1605 – the Pícara Justina and the Quijote use it.^[5]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades defines it as a gaming term and records envidar de falso.^[3]
• 1899 – the Academy first derives it from Latin invitare.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. (card games, also intransitive) To bid, to make an envite: Envidé a grande sin tener buenas cartas.^[7][1][18]
2. (obsolete) To invite.^[7][1]

Related words

• convidar
• envite
• invitar
• envido
• Catalan envidar

Usage notes

Envidar de falso or envidar en falso is to bid with a weak hand hoping the opponent will not accept, and figuratively to offer something while wishing it to be refused.^[7][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. envidar
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 530
4. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. envidar
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 461
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. invitar
7. ^ 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. envidar
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3553
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 203
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, 62
14. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. envidar
15. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. envidar
16. ^ 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. envidar
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 407
18. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. envidar