escaldar

Forms

escaldar (first-person singular present escaldo, first-person singular preterite escaldé, past participle escaldado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin excaldāre (“to put into hot water”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from ex- and caldus (“hot”), the syncopated form of calidus.^[1][5] In Spanish the adjective survived only in the earliest texts, where caldo meant “hot”; it was soon replaced by caliente, and lives on as the noun for “broth”.^[2]

The same verb is Portuguese escaldar, Galician escaldar, Catalan escaldar, Old Occitan escaudar, French échauder, Italian scaldare and Romanian scălda (“to bathe”).^[6][1][5]

The adjective belongs with caleō (“to be warm”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱlh₁-eh₁- (“to be hot”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates it to Berceo, and the BDELC to 1220–1250.^[2][3] In Berceo's Vida de San Millán (c. 1230, in an 18th-century copy) a viento escaldado, a scorching wind, brings a raging fire.^[8] The next examples in the CDH are of the 1380s: in the Spanish Palladio a wind quemar o escaldar “burns or scorches” the vine shoots.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The core sense is to burn with, or plunge into, very hot water: a royal law collected in the Recopilación and quoted by Autoridades told cloth-makers to wash their wool escaldándolas primero con agua caliente “scalding it first with hot water”.^[9][8] Autoridades adds the sense “to heat iron red-hot in the fire”.^[9] Covarrubias (1611) also records the reflexive of something that turns red with heat, and escaldada for a debased woman.^[10]

Figurative senses grew from the idea of a painful lesson: Terreros glosses escaldar a uno as “to teach someone a lesson”, and the proverb gato escaldado del agua fría huye “a scalded cat flees cold water” says the same.^[11][1][12] Moliner records the sense “to wound someone's pride”.^[13] In 1899 the Academy added the reflexive “to chafe”, of the skin.^[14][4]

In the Canaries escaldar is to stir gofio into boiling broth to make a thick paste.^[15] Leonese uses it for spoiling boiling potatoes by adding cold water, for a tool losing its temper, and for going mad.^[16]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – first record, in Berceo.^[2][3]
• 1379–1384 – Juan Fernández de Heredia's translation of Plutarch has se escalda.^[8]
• 1380–1385 – the Spanish Palladio uses it of winds scorching the vines.^[8]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as burning with hot water.^[10]
• 1637 – first record in the Americas, in Bogotá.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades adds the sense of heating iron red-hot.^[9]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the reflexive sense “to chafe”.^[14]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To put something into boiling water; to blanch it: Escalda las almendras para quitarles la piel.^[4][18]
2. (transitive, also reflexive) To scald: to burn something or someone with boiling water or another hot liquid.^[4][1]
3. (transitive) To make something, such as iron, red-hot in the fire.^[4]
4. (reflexive) Of the skin, especially of the groin: to become chafed and sore.^[4][1]

Word family

• escaldadura
• rescaldar

Related words

• caldo
• rescoldo
• cálido
• Latin calidus
• French échauder

Usage notes

Salir escaldado “to come off badly” and the proverb gato escaldado del agua fría huye use the participle in the sense of someone who has learnt from a bad experience.^[13][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 759
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. caldo
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. escaldar
5. ^ a b Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 261
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2946
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ 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. escaldar
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 549
10. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 759
11. ^ 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, 73
12. ^ Lamano y Beneite, José de (1915), El dialecto vulgar salmantino, Salamanca: Tipografía Popular, p. 435
13. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. escaldar
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 412
15. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. escaldar
16. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. escaldar
17. ^ 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. escaldar
18. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. escaldar