feo

Forms

feo (feminine fea, masculine plural feos, feminine plural feas, superlative feísimo)^[1] Old Spanish had hedo, with the usual loss of Latin f-, beside feo.^[2] The form hedo is still found in the 15th-century Cancionero de Baena.^[3] Asturian has feu and feyo, and Ribagorzan Aragonese fego.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin foedus (“foul, repulsive; ugly”).^[5][6][7][8] In Latin the adjective meant “foul, unclean, repugnant”, of looks, taste or smell.^[9][10]

Old Castilian had hedo, the regular outcome with h- from Latin f-, but the form with f-, that of most of the Peninsula, took its place in the centre.^[2] Wiktionary reports Corominas's view that the Castilian form was borrowed from Asturian feu and displaced the native form.^[1] The same Latin word is Portuguese feio and Sardinian feu (Logudorese, also Corsican).^[11][12]

De Vaan derives the Latin adjective from a Proto-Italic adjective meaning “afraid”, and further from *bʰeyh₂- (“to be afraid”), if the first meaning was “frightful”.^[9] Wiktionary gives the same root.^[1] The Latin noun meaning “treaty”, the source of federal, has a separate origin.^[13][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140) has a fea guisa “shamefully, in a disgraceful way” (verse 1677).^[5][14][15] The Tentative Dictionary sums up the Old Spanish senses as “ugly to look at; vile”.^[15]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already shows the three main senses: lacking beauty (fea color), causing horror or aversion (snoring that is muy feos), and rough or unpolished (stones feos & non polidos).^[16] Berceo uses it for “dreadful, horrible”.^[17]

The Diccionario de Autoridades (1732) defines it as misshapen and displeasing to the eye, and figuratively of acts and intentions, and records the proverb compuesta no hay mujer fea.^[18] From the 19th century the masculine noun un feo means a pointed snub (hacer un feo, dejar feo a alguien); the Academy added it in 1884.^[19][20][21]

In much of Latin America feo is said of a bad taste or smell, and works as an adverb, “badly, nastily”.^[22][23] In the Dominican Republic it can also mean “abundant, excessive”.^[24]

Timeline

• 972 – a charter of Cirueña has the old form hedis.^[25]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has a fea guisa “shamefully”.^[5][14]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses feo for colours and sounds.^[16]
• 1527 – first record in the Americas, in Nicaragua: palabra fea ny injuriosa.^[26]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it “foul”, Latin foedus.^[27]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the literal and the figurative sense.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology and the noun sense “snub”.^[21]

Meanings

Adjective

1. ugly, lacking beauty: Compraron un sofá bastante feo.^[6][1]
2. Unpleasant; causing dislike or aversion, especially of conduct: Es feo burlarse de un compañero.^[6][28]
3. Of bad or unfavourable appearance; threatening: La tormenta se está poniendo fea.^[6][28]
4. (Latin America) Unpleasant to the taste or smell.^[22][23]

Noun

1. (colloquial) A pointed, rude snub (hacer un feo).^[6][28]

Adverb

1. (Latin America) Badly, unpleasantly: Ese perro me miró feo.^[22][29]

Word family

• afear
• bichofeo
• feamente

Related words

• Latin foedus
• Portuguese feio

Usage notes

Set phrases include el sexo feo “men” (jocular), más feo que Picio “as ugly as sin” and patito feo “ugly duckling”.^[6][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2845
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 525
4. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. feu
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. feo
6. ^ 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. feo
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 304
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. feo
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. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3406
12. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1542
13. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 279
15. ^ 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. 255
16. ^ 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. feo
17. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 364
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 735
19. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 801
20. ^ Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 997
21. ^ 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), p. 492
22. ^ 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. feo
23. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 637
24. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. feo
25. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. feo
26. ^ 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. feo
27. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 142
28. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. feo
29. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. feo