estar

Forms

estar (first-person singular present estoy, first-person singular preterite estuve, past participle estado)^[1] Old Spanish preterite forms included estido and estudo.^[2] Asturian has the shortened tar.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin stāre (“to stand; to stand firm, motionless”), Old Spanish estar.^[4][5][6][1] The preterite estuve is of uncertain origin, most likely modelled on hube of haber, as in andar and tener.^[1] Autoridades already noted the irregular change of ⟨a⟩ to ⟨u⟩ in these past tenses (estuvo, estuviera).^[7]

The same verb is Portuguese estar, Catalan estar, Occitan estar, Old French ester, Italian stare and Romanian sta.^[8][3][9] Portuguese and Catalan, like Spanish, use it where other Romance languages use the verb for “to be”, Catalan less widely;^[4] Italian and Old French did so somewhat more than modern French.^[4] Schuchardt's idea that an Iberian substrate caused this wide use of estar is, in Corominas's view, hardly credible.^[4]

stō goes back to Proto-Italic *staēō and the stative *sth₂-éh₁-ye-ti, from Proto-Indo-European *steh₂- “to stand”.^[1][10] It is related to English stand and state.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Its first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy), where the weeping Cid turns his head „e estávalos catando” “and kept looking at them”, at the empty doors of his house, already with a gerund.^[11][4][12] The first record without a later copy is in the Cortes de Benavente of 1202: „estando en Benabente” “being at Benavente”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used estar for “to stay still”, “to remain”, “to reside”, “to be present”, “to stand” and “to be”, with a gerund and with adjectives and participles of passing states, and estar para with an infinitive meant “to be about to”.^[12] In Alfonso X's prose it also stands for ser, and with a and a noun it means to be bound or ready to do something.^[13]

Covarrubias in 1611 wrote that it properly means “to stand”, but is used of being anywhere, and set out the difference between ser bueno “to be wholesome” and estar bueno “to taste good”.^[14] Terreros called it an auxiliary for forms such as estoi leyendo, and the Academy's dictionary of 1843 opened the entry with this auxiliary use with the gerund.^[15][16] Bello's rule, quoted by Román, gave estar the accidental and passing qualities and ser the essential ones.^[17]

In the Americas it is recorded from 1515.^[18] Venezuela uses el estar for the living room, and Cuba estar alone for being in trouble.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has estávalos catando.^[11][5]
• 1202 – the Cortes de Benavente, the first record not known from a later copy.^[11]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's prose already uses it in the sense “to be”.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin sum, es, fui, esse as its equivalent, as for ser.^[20]
• 1515 – the first records from the Americas, in Santo Domingo and Tierra Firme.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the difference between ser bueno and estar bueno.^[14]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary defines it first as an auxiliary used with the gerund.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy gives its etymology, Latin stare.^[21]

Meanings

Verb

1. (copulative) be, of a passing state or condition: La sopa está fría.^[6][1]
2. To be (somewhere), be present: Mis padres están en Sevilla.^[6][1]
3. To remain, stay with some stability in a place or condition; also reflexive: Se estuvo quieto toda la tarde.^[6]
4. (auxiliary) With a gerund, forms the progressive: Estoy leyendo.^[1][16]
5. Of a garment, to fit or suit (well or badly): Los zapatos me están grandes.^[6]
6. Used with some adjectives and participles to mean ironically the opposite: ¡Pues sí que estamos buenos!^[6]
7. (chiefly first person plural) Used to give the day of the month: Hoy estamos a tres de mayo.^[6]
8. Of goods, to sell at a price: ¿A cuánto está el tomate?^[6]
9. With con, to live or work with someone; to meet someone.^[6]
10. With de, to work temporarily as: Este verano está de camarero.^[6]

Word family

• bienestar
• malestar
• estada

Related words

• estación
• estadía
• estado
• estancia
• ser
• estable
• establecer
• estatua
• constar
• distar
• Latin sto

Usage notes

Spanish divides the English “to be” between ser and estar: es pálido describes someone's colouring, está pálido a passing state.^[17][14] Sala de estar and cuarto de estar are the living room.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. estar
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6324
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 776
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. estar
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. estar
7. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 629
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1443
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. sto
11. ^ 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. estar
12. ^ 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. 242
13. ^ 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. estar
14. ^ 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. 804
15. ^ 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, 111
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 324
17. ^ a b Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 309
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. estar
19. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. estar
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 351
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 466