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fuego

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word fuego

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1155 Fuero de Avilés More words from the 12th century
Inherited from
Latin focus
Ultimate origin
Latin focus
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin focus
Aromanian foc
French feu
Italian fuoco
Spanish fuego
English focus
From the same root
English curfew ← focus
Latin focālis ← focus
Latin focāris ← focus
Latin foculus ← focus
English focal ← focus

Pronunciation

  • /ˈfweɡo/, [ˈfwe.ɣ̞o], [ˈɸweɣo][1]

Forms

fuego m (plural fuegos)[1] Around 1500, when aspirated h- replaced written f-, some writers, Nebrija among them, preferred huego;[1][2] fuego remained the literary form.[3][1][2] Juego is now usual in eastern Leonese and in the popular speech of several American countries, Argentina and Chile among them;[4] Asturian has fueu and fuebu.[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin focus (“fire”), through Old Spanish fuego.[3][5][6][1] In classical Latin the word was the hearth, the household fire or a brazier; from at least the 4th century it was used in place of ignis (“fire”).[3][7][8] The old sense “hearth” survives in the sense “household” as a unit of a town's population.[3]

The same Latin word is Portuguese fogo, Galician fogo, Asturian fueu and Catalan foc.[4][9][1] The learned doublet is foco “focus”, borrowed from Latin in 1708.[5][1]

The origin of the Latin word is unknown.[8] De Vaan rejects a link with fax (“torch”), which is formally impossible, and finds Hamp's derivation from a root meaning “to burn” chronologically difficult.[10] Wiktionary mentions a comparison with Old Armenian բոց (bocʻ, “flame”).[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to 1155, in the Fuero de Avilés; the form fuego is in Berceo and in a Burgos document of 1219.[5][3] The DEMel also lists a ffuego of 1145 and fuegos “households” in a list of Navarrese families of about 1157.[11] In the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200) the Lord sends fuego del cielo “fire from heaven” on those cities.[12]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the word for the heat and light of burning matter.[13] The sense “household” is attested in Guevara (1528), who says that Thebes had two hundred thousand fuegos.[3] Covarrubias in 1611 gives the example of Toledo's thousands of fuegos, and explains pondré las manos en un fuego “I would put my hands in a fire” by the ordeal of fire once used to prove innocence.[3][14]

Autoridades still defined fire as the hottest and lightest of the four elements.[15] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 records ¡fuego, fuego! as the cry raised for a house fire, the shot of firearms and a skin eruption.[16] The DLE adds the burner of a cooker and a light for a cigarette.[6] In much of Latin America fuego is a mouth ulcer or a cold sore.[17] In the Canaries fuego salvaje was the will-o'-the-wisp in 1768 and later the glow-worm.[18]

Timeline

  • 1155 – first record, in the Fuero de Avilés.[5][11]
  • c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has fuego del cielo.[12]
  • 1219 – a Burgos document has the form fuego.[3]
  • 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of a furnace of strong fire.[13]
  • c. 1492–1495 – Nebrija writes huego beside fuego.[3][2]
  • 1528 – Guevara uses fuegos for households.[3]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias records pondré las manos en un fuego.[14]
  • 1646 – first record of fogata.[5]
  • 1708 – the learned doublet foco is first recorded.[5]
  • 1768 – fuego salvaje “will-o'-the-wisp” in the Canaries.[18]
  • 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology focus.[16]

Meanings

Noun

  1. fire: the giving off of heat and light, usually with flames.[6][1]
  2. A mass of burning fuel, especially for heating or cooking: Echa más leña al fuego.[6]
  3. A bonfire, a hoguera.[6]
  4. A large fire, a blaze.[6][15]
  5. A burner of a cooker: una cocina de dos fuegos.[6]
  6. The shooting of a firearm; gunfire.[6][16]
  7. A light for tobacco: Le pidió fuego a un desconocido.[6]
  8. The excitement of a passion such as love or anger; ardour, vehemence.[6]
  9. A skin rash with redness and itching.[6][16]
  10. (Latin America) A mouth ulcer, or a sore at the corner of the lips.[17]
  11. (rare) A household, as a unit of population: un pueblo de cien fuegos.[6][14]
  12. (in the plural) Fireworks.[6]

Interjection

  1. (military) Fire!: the order to shoot.[1]

Word family

  • fogata
  • fogoso
  • foguear
  • fogón
  • hogar
  • hoguera
  • hogaza
  • foco
  • Latin focus
  • Portuguese fogo

Usage notes

Fuego amigo is fire from one's own side, also figuratively, and fuego cruzado crossfire.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c 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. fuego
  3. ^ 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, 968
  4. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 2840
  5. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fuego
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. fuego
  7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. fuego
  8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  9. ^ 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. 4, 62
  10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  11. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. fuego
  12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. fuego
  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. fuego
  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. 867
  15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 804
  16. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 512
  17. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. fuego
  18. ^ a b 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. fuego

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Fuego.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/fuego. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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