feble

Forms

feble m or f (masculine and feminine plural febles)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Catalan feble (“weak”), which comes from Vulgar Latin *febilis, a form of Latin flēbilis (“lamentable; tearful”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin adjective is formed from fleō (“to weep”) with the suffix -bilis.^[5][1] The change of sense to “weak” came by analogy with dēbilis (“weak”).^[6]

Corominas argues that the medieval word cannot be French, because northern French then said foible, while the Catalan word and Occitan feble are old and popular words from the 13th century.^[2] Others took it from French: the REW gives French faible as the source of the Spanish word, the Academy did so in 1884, and Covarrubias already called it a French word.^[7][8][9] Corominas allows a French influence only in the later uses.^[2] Prat Sabater counts it among the Catalan loans of the mint.^[10]

The same Latin word is Italian fievole and Portuguese febre, used of light coins.^[7] flébil is a learned doublet, recorded from 1515.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

La fazienda de Ultra Mar, of about 1200 and known from a 13th-century copy, has it in Daniel's prophecy of a king mas feble de ti “weaker than you”.^[11][12] Corominas's first record is Berceo's Vida de San Millán, where los febles e los sanos, “the sick and the healthy”, come out to see the saint.^[2][11][13]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages the word meant “weak, frail” and, as a noun, “a sickly person”, though Corominas thinks it was never very popular.^[2] Nebrija glosses it with Latin debilis and exilis.^[14] As a term of the mint it appears in a law of 1497 for coins short in weight or fineness, and Autoridades quotes the rule that no minter may take out the light coins and leave the full ones.^[2][3][15] Autoridades also records a noun sense, a weakness or weak point, as in le conoció el feble.^[15]

The general sense went out of use, though the dictionaries did not mark it as obsolete; the DLE keeps both senses, and Moliner marks the first as literary.^[2][4][16] In Spanish America the coin sense is recorded from 1545 in Mexico City, and in El Salvador feble means small change.^[17][18]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – mas feble de ti in La fazienda de Ultra Mar (13th-century copy).^[11]
• c. 1230 – Berceo's los febles e los sanos.^[11][2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: feble cosa flaca.^[14]
• 1497 – the coin sense in a law, the BDELC's date for it.^[2][3]
• 1515 – the learned doublet flébil.^[2][3]
• 1545 – un peso un poquito feble in Mexico City.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias calls it a French word.^[9]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from French faible.^[8]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (literary) weak, feeble, flaco.^[4][16][1]
2. Of a coin or an alloy, short in weight or in fineness (ley); also as a noun, a light coin.^[4][16]

Noun

1. (El Salvador) Coins, small change.^[18]

Word family

• febledad

Related words

• flébil
• débil
• Catalan feble
• French faible

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 877
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. feble
4. ^ a b c d 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. feble
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies)
9. ^ 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. 836
10. ^ Prat Sabater, Marta (2003), Préstamos del catalán en el léxico español, doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
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. feble
12. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
13. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra
14. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 353
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 730
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
17. ^ 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
18. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer