furioso

Forms

furioso (feminine furiosa, masculine plural furiosos, feminine plural furiosas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin furiōsus (“full of rage; mad”), a learned word.^[2][3][4][1] DEMel records it in Alfonso X's Siete Partidas (1256–1265); the DCECH and the BDELC date it from the Corbacho of 1438.^[5][2][3] Like the other derivatives of furia, it is an old learned word.^[2]

The Latin adjective is formed from furia (“rage, madness”) with the suffix -ōsus.^[1][6][7] The Latin noun comes from furō (“to rave, be mad”).^[2] The same Latin word was taken into Portuguese furioso, Catalan furiós, Italian furioso and, through Old French furieus, French furieux.^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Corbacho (1438) is the DCECH's first record.^[2] Alfonso de Palencia (1490) glosses Latin furiosus as one who flies into a rage like a wild beast.^[2] Covarrubias (1611) describes the two senses of his time: the madman who must be kept in chains or a cage, and the angry man whom rage drives out of his mind; he quotes Horace's Ira furor brevis est “anger is a brief madness”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The Diccionario de Autoridades (1732) put the sense “completely out of one's mind, needing to be tied up” first, then “angry, raging”, “violent, terrible” and, in heraldry, a bull rearing like a rampant lion.^[10] The Academy's 1817 edition added “very great, excessive”, as in furioso gasto.^[11] Corominas notes that the word had become a classic one and is today even more popular than furia.^[2] Moliner records its use for violent forces of nature and for an overwhelming pain or urge, as in ganas furiosas.^[12]

Timeline

• 1256–1265 – DEMel records it in Alfonso X's Siete Partidas.^[5]
• 1376 – the first texts of the HSMS archive that have it.^[13]
• 1438 – the Corbacho, the DCECH's and the BDELC's first record.^[2][3]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Latin–Spanish vocabulary.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin furiosus and furibundus.^[14]
• 1548 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo, of a cannon shot.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias.^[9]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades.^[10]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the sense “very great, excessive”.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Feeling furia; furious, raging: Se puso furioso al ver el coche rayado.^[4][1]
2. Mad, needing to be restrained, as in loco furioso.^[4][12]
3. Violent, terrible: un temporal furioso.^[4][1]
4. Very great, excessive.^[4]

Word family

• furiosamente

Related words

• furia
• furor
• furibundo
• enfurecer
• Latin furiōsus

Usage notes

In heraldry, toro furioso is a bull standing on its hind legs like a rampant lion.^[4][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 979
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. furia
4. ^ 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. furioso
5. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. furioso
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 320
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. furiós
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. 875
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 814
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 430
12. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. furioso
13. ^ 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, p. s.v. furioso
14. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 355
15. ^ 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. furioso