esconder

Forms

esconder (first-person singular present escondo, first-person singular preterite escondí, past participle escondido)^[1] The old form asconder is the usual one in the 13th century; in the Golden Age it was still frequent in popular speech, and it survives in Mexico.^[2] Old Spanish texts and charters also have absconder and ascuso, escoso as past participles.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin abscondō (“to hide, conceal”), first as inherited from Old Spanish asconder; the prefix ⟨a-⟩ was later replaced by ⟨es-⟩.^[2][4][5][1] García de Diego and Gómez de Silva put the change down to the influence of the prefix es-;^[6][7][8] Wikcionario explains it as a reanalysis after the many verbs that begin that way, as in escuchar from older ascuchar.^[6][7][8] Wiktionary adds that the stressed short /o/ of the Latin verb once gave the diphthong /ue/ in forms such as older escuendo (“I hide”), later levelled to the present form.^[1]

Corominas reconstructs the old strong preterite as *ascuse, from Vulgar Latin absconsī, and the past participle first as *ascoso, then ascuso; from the participle came the old adverbs meaning “secretly”, used in the ⟨Libro de Alexandre⟩ and by Juan Ruiz.^[2] The same participle is the source of escusar (“to hide, keep away”), whence a room for storing things was called a cuarto escusado (1732), and so excusado came to mean a toilet (late 19th century).^[4]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese esconder, Galician esconder, Asturian esconder, Catalan escondir, Occitan escondre, Old French escondre, Italian ascondere and Romanian ascunde.^[9][6] Coromines considers the Catalan verb a half-learned word taken from Latin, not from Castilian; the DCVB derives it probably through Spanish.^[10][11]

The Latin verb is formed with abs- (“away”) and condō (“to put away, store; hide”).^[12][1] Gómez de Silva derives the second part from Proto-Indo-European *kom- (“together”) and the root *dhē- (“to put, place”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates asconder to the Cantar de mio Cid and esconder to Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor; the esconder of Berceo's poems is probably a modernisation by copyists of the 14th century or later.^[2][13] The CDH's first hit is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), where a mother ascondiol .iii. meses “hid him three months”.^[14] The earliest hit with esconder and without a later copy is in the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250): Del que escondio el fugitiuo “of him who hid the fugitive”.^[14]

Semantic evolution

In Alfonso X's astronomical works the verb also means the setting of a planet below the horizon: quando se asconden “when they set”.^[15] Covarrubias in 1611 recorded the proverb tirar la piedra y esconder la mano “throw the stone and hide the hand”, said of someone who does harm in secret and shows friendship in public, and a children's game called el esconder.^[16] Autoridades added the figurative senses “to cover under obscure words” and “to contain”, as when a book hides a mystery.^[17]

The old form lived on in the Americas: a text from Tierra Firme of 1515 has both absconder and ascondiéndose.^[18] The derivatives escondidas (1495, Nebrija), escondite (1616) and escondrijo (1570, from older escondedijo) came later than the verb.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – asconder in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[2][4]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has ascondiol “hid him” (in a 13th-century copy).^[14]
• 1218–c. 1250 – escondio in the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes.^[14]
• 1254–1260 – Alfonsine astronomy uses asconderse for the setting of the planets.^[15]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz uses the form esconder.^[2][13]
• 1515 – first records from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records tirar la piedra y esconder la mano and the game el esconder.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin abscondere.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also pronominal) To hide, conceal: Escondió las cartas en un cajón.^[5][1]
2. To put someone or something away in a secret place;^[5][20] (pronominal) to hide oneself: Los niños se escondieron detrás de la puerta.^[5][20]
3. To contain something that is not evident to everyone: Aquella sonrisa escondía una amenaza.^[5][20]

Word family

• escondidas
• escondite
• escondrijo
• escondimiento
• escondido

Related words

• recóndito
• excusado
• Latin abscondō
• Portuguese esconder
• English abscond

Usage notes

The Academy's dictionary also has a noun esconder (from the verb), the game of hide-and-seek, now usually called escondite; the Academy recorded it in 1817.^[5][21] The proverb tirar la piedra y esconder la mano is said of someone who harms others in secret.^[16][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 704
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 207
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esconder
5. ^ 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. esconder
6. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
7. ^ a b c Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
8. ^ a b Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. abscondere
10. ^ 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, 541
11. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. escondir
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b 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. esconder
14. ^ 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. esconder
15. ^ a b 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. esconder
16. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1, 768
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 567
18. ^ 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. absconder
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 450
20. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esconder
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 380