fuga

Forms

fuga f (plural fugas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin fuga (“flight, escape”), a learned word beside the inherited verb huir.^[2][1][3][4] Corominas lists it among the learned words in his article on that verb and dates it to the 16th century, from Pedro Mejía.^[3][4] The CDH and the HSMS have it earlier, in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Aragonese translations of 1376–1396, and DICCA-XV in 1448–1465.^[5][6][7]

The same learned word is Italian fuga and Catalan fuga.^[8] Popular descendants of the Latin noun are Romanian fugă and the Italian foga (“ardour, haste”); the REW holds that French fougue and a Spanish sense “liveliness” were taken from the Italian word.^[9]

The Latin noun is derived from fugiō (“to flee”).^[10][11] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Italic *fugā and Proto-Indo-European *bʰugéh₂, and de Vaan reconstructs the verb as *bʰug- (“to flee”).^[1][10] Its closest Greek counterparts are Ancient Greek φυγή (phugḗ, “flight, exile”) and φεύγω (pheúgō, “to flee”).^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest Spanish texts with the word are Juan Fernández de Heredia's Aragonese translations of 1376–1396, where it means “flight” from an enemy or in the chase: in the Historia troyana the narrator gives up following a stag because of la grant et aquexada fuga del cieruo “the stag's great and hurried flight”, and in the translation of Plutarch the enemy metieron en fuga a Cesar “put Caesar to flight”.^[5][6] An earlier hit in the CDH, in the Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223), is the name of a beast said to kill men with its bite, not the noun “flight”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija's Latin dictionary of 1492 glosses the Latin word as la huida o corrida “flight or running away”.^[7] Autoridades defines it as the hurried flight of someone escaping a danger and calls it a purely Latin word.^[12] It also records the senses “the moment when something is at its liveliest” (la fuga de la risa) and, in building, the thrust of a structure.^[12]

In music Terreros described the fuga as a passage in a quicker time than the allegro, and the Academy in 1817 as the quickening of a movement.^[13][14] From 1869 the Academy defines it as the fugue, a composition on a theme and its imitation in different keys.^[15] The sense “leak of gas or liquid” is first in the edition of 1899.^[16][17] The modern dictionaries add fuga de cerebros “brain drain” and the puzzle fuga de vocales or fuga de consonantes, in which the missing letters of a text must be guessed.^[2][18]

In the Canary Islands fuga is a steep cliff, recorded from 1663, and in Gran Canaria also a feverish activity or craze.^[19][20] In Puerto Rico it means “mania”, and ser uno de fuga is “to be fickle”.^[21][22] In Asturian it names a shortness of breath in cattle.^[3] The word passed into Tagalog as puga.^[1]

Timeline

• 1376–1396 – Juan Fernández de Heredia uses fuga “flight” in his Aragonese translations.^[5][6]
• 1448–1465 – the first record in DICCA-XV, the Castilian of the Crown of Aragon.^[7]
• 1492 – Nebrija glosses the Latin word with huida.^[7]
• 16th century – Corominas's first record, in Pedro Mejía.^[3][4]
• 1568 – the first record in the Americas, in Guatemala, for the range of a crossbow shot.^[23]
• 1663 – the Canarian sense “steep cliff”.^[19]
• 1786–1793 – Terreros records the musical sense and the phrases poner en fuga and ponerse en fuga.^[13]
• 1869 – the Academy defines the fugue as a composition on a theme and its imitation.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, from Latin fuga.^[17]
• 1899 – the sense “leak of gas or liquid” enters the Academy's dictionary.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. flight, escape: the act of running away, especially from custody: Los dos reclusos planearon la fuga durante meses.^[2][1]
2. An unexpected abandonment of one's home or usual surroundings.^[24]
3. A leak of gas or liquid through an accidental hole or crack: Llamaron al fontanero por una fuga en la cocina.^[2][1]
4. (music) A fugue: a composition in which a theme and its counterpoint are repeated in different keys.^[2][1]
5. The moment of greatest force or intensity of an action; the peak of a harvest.^[24][18]
6. (psychology) A dissociative state in which a person wanders for days without clear awareness of their acts.^[18]
7. (Canary Islands) A steep cliff or precipice; a narrow spot in a ravine where rainwater falls as a cascade.^[20][19]
8. (Puerto Rico) A mania, craze.^[21][25]

Word family

• fuga de cerebros

Related words

• fugar
• fugitivo
• huir
• refugio
• fugaz
• tránsfuga
• Latin fuga

Usage notes

Common phrases are poner en fuga “to put to flight”, fuga de capitales “capital flight” and fuga de cerebros “brain drain”.^[18][2] The older meter en fuga meant “to urge someone on eagerly, especially to some amusement”.^[26][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. fuga
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 427
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. huir
5. ^ 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
6. ^ a b c Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
7. ^ a b c d 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. fuga
8. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 460
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 809
13. ^ a b 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, 193
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 429
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 373
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 476
17. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 513
18. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
19. ^ a b c 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. fuga
20. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. fuga
21. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 197
22. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 656
23. ^ 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. fuga
24. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. fuga
25. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. fuga
26. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 354