grande

Forms

grande m or f (masculine singular before a noun gran, masculine and feminine plural grandes, superlative grandísimo or mayor)^[1] In the 13th century and later the usual Old Spanish form was grant, also written grand.^[2][3] Before a singular noun it is shortened to gran, as in Catalan gran.^[4][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin grandis (“full-grown, large”); the Old Spanish form was already grande.^[2][5][6][1] The Latin word meant “grandiose” and “advanced in age”, and was more at home in spoken Latin than magnus (“great”), which it almost wholly displaced in the Romance languages.^[2][7][8][9]

The same word is Portuguese grande, Galician grande, Asturian grande, Catalan gran, Occitan gran, French grand and Italian grande.^[8][4][1]

The origin of grandis is unclear.^[1][9] The OLD suggests a root meaning “swell”, comparing Ancient Greek βρένθος (brénthos, “pride”);^[10] de Vaan rejects this and the comparison with an Old Church Slavonic word for “breast”, and finds Vennemann's idea of a substrate word shared with Basque handi (“big”) too dependent on ad hoc assumptions.^[11] Wiktionary adds the traditional link with Proto-Indo-European *gʰer- “to rub, grind” and Proto-Germanic *grautaz.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to a charter of 1048.^[2][5] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) the hero, leaving Vivar, „mucho avié grandes cuidados” “had great cares”;^[12] the poem uses it of size, rank and quality (grand ondra “great honour”), of number (grandes mesnadas) and of people, in chicos e grandes “young and old”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish often used grande where today one would say mucho: grandes gentes “many people” in Berceo; the DLE keeps the sense “abundant, numerous” as obsolete.^[2][6] Alfonso X's prose already has a noun for a magnate or person of high rank.^[14] In 1611 Covarrubias described grande as the highest title of honour, above dukes and marquises, whose holders kept their hats on before the King,^[15] and the Diccionario de Autoridades distinguished grandees of the first, second and third class.^[16] English took this noun as grandee in the 1590s.^[17]

Before a noun the full form grande is emphatic: Cervantes writes „de tan grande sobresalto”.^[2] The derivative grandioso (1599–1601) is a Spanish coinage that passed to Italian, French, German and English.^[2] Baralt in 1855 condemned más grande for mayor as a gallicism.^[18] In Mexico grande also means “elderly”, and mamá grande is a grandmother.^[19][20]

Timeline

• 1048 – first record, in a charter.^[2][5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has grande, grand and grant.^[13][12]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for “great” and for “much, long”.^[14]
• c. 1250 – first record of grandeza.^[5]
• 1528 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[21]
• 1590s – English borrows the noun as grandee.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the title of grande.^[15]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades distinguishes three classes of grandees.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology and the noun grande de España.^[22]

Meanings

Adjective

1. big, large; greater than usual in size, importance, gifts or intensity.^[6][1]
2. Of a person: grown-up, adult, as opposed to pequeño or chico.^[6][1]
3. Of a person: tall or heavily built.^[6]
4. (obsolete) Abundant, numerous.^[6]
5. (Mexico) Elderly, getting on in years.^[19][20]

Noun

1. A grandee: a nobleman or person of the highest rank.^[6][1]
2. (feminine; card games) In mus, the first round of the game, in which the highest cards count.^[6]
3. (Dominican Republic; feminine) A large bottle of beer.^[23]

Word family

• grandeza
• grandor
• grandura
• grandioso
• grandote
• grandullón
• agrandar
• engrandecer
• grandemente

Related words

• grandilocuente
• Latin grandis
• Portuguese grande
• English grandee

Usage notes

Gran is used before a singular noun of either gender (un gran día, una gran casa); grande there is emphatic.^[2][1] Placed before the noun the word usually means “great”, after it “big”.^[1] Set phrases include a lo grande “lavishly” and grande de España.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. 3, 194
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. grande
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. grandis
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. grande
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. grande
7. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. grande
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. grand
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. grandis
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. grandis
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. grande
13. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. grande
14. ^ 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. grande
15. ^ 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. 933
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 72
17. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
18. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 336
19. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 31
20. ^ a b García Icazbalceta, Joaquín (1899), Vocabulario de mexicanismos comprobado con ejemplos y comparado con los de otros países hispano-americanos, México: La Europea, p. s.v. grande
21. ^ 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. grande
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 539
23. ^ 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. grande