espeso

Forms

espeso (feminine espesa, masculine plural espesos, feminine plural espesas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote espesso, espessa beside espeso; the Diccionario de Autoridades still spelt it espesso.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin spissus (“thick, dense, compact”).^[4][5] The Old Spanish form was espesso.^[2][1]

The same Latin word is Portuguese espesso, Galician espeso, Asturian espesu, Catalan espès, Occitan espés, French épais, Italian spesso and Sardinian ispissu.^[6][1][7] In Italian it also means “often”, a sense found in Old Catalan, Old Occitan and Old Spanish too.^[6][8]

The Latin adjective meant first “slow, laborious” and then “dense”.^[9][10] De Vaan reconstructs *spisso-, perhaps from *spid-to-, with the Greek family of Ancient Greek σπίδιος (spídios, “extensive, wide”) as its likeliest cognate; he notes that it may also contain an expressive double consonant, like crassus and grossus.^[9] Wiktionary gives *spidtos (“thick and slow”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the feminine espessa in a document of 1011 in the Colección diplomática de Oña.^[2][4] In Alfonso X's Lapidario (1250–1279) a stone's whiteness is espessa, dense enough that the eye does not see through it.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish already used the adjective for a dense substance, for things growing close together, such as thick hair, and for a massive, solid body; the General Estoria has espesso uso in the sense “continual”.^[11] The Diccionario de Autoridades gave the senses “condensed”, “thick, solid” and “close together”, illustrated with the dense wood of the Quijote.^[3] The Academy's dictionary of 1843 lists the senses “frequent” and “dirty, greasy”, and marks “thick, massive” as old; the DLE now has “frequent” and “dirty” as little used.^[12][5]

In Aragon, Peru and Venezuela espeso is said of a tiresome person, a sense the DAMER also gives for Guatemala, Cuba and Bolivia; in Ecuador, Argentina and Uruguay it describes a difficult, tense situation.^[5][13] The historical dictionary of the Canaries records it in the sense “drunk”.^[14]

Timeline

• 1011 – first record, espessa, in a document of Oña.^[2][4]
• 1220–1250 – first record of the derivative espesura.^[4]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas describe cabellos espessos “thick hair”.^[11]
• 1438 – first record of the verb espesar.^[4]
• 1571 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City: tiene la barba espesa.^[15]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the derivative espesor; it defines the adjective under the spelling espesso.^[4][3]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin spissus.^[16]

Meanings

Adjective

1. thick, dense (of a mass, liquid or gas): una sopa muy espesa.^[5][1]
2. Growing or set close together, like corn in a field or trees in a wood: un bosque espeso.^[5][1]
3. Thick, solid, massive: muros espesos.^[5]
4. (Aragon, Peru, Venezuela) Tiresome, annoying (of a person).^[5][13][1]
5. (Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay) Difficult, tense (of a situation).^[13][1]
6. (rare) Continual, frequent.^[5]
7. (rare) Dirty, greasy, unkempt.^[5][17]

Word family

• espesar
• espesura
• barbiespeso
• espesor

Related words

• Latin spissus
• Portuguese espesso
• French épais

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. espeso
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 600
4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. espeso
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. espeso
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8160
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1421
8. ^ 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, 641
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. spissus
11. ^ 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. espeso
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 319
13. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. espeso
14. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. espeso
15. ^ 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. espeso
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 459
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. espeso