grima

Forms

grima f (uncountable)^[1]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Gothic *𐌲𐍂𐌹𐌼𐌼𐍃 (*grimms, “horrible”), a Gothic word not found in the surviving texts.^[2][3][4][1] Corominas compares Old High German grim and grimmi “hostile, frightful”, Old English grimm and Old Norse grimmr “raging, impetuous”; the same Germanic adjective is the English word grim.^[2][3][1] These go back to Proto-Germanic *grimmaz (“grim, angry, fierce”), perhaps from a root *gʰrem- (“to thunder, growl”).^[1][5]

Corominas argues that the spread of the word and its family favours a Gothic origin: besides Spanish it is found in Portuguese grima “antipathy, hatred, rage”, in a Trás-os-Montes word for “fear”, in Alpine Occitan grimous (“greedy, passionate”) and in Old Italian grimo (“wrinkled (old man); wretched”).^[2] Because it is absent from Catalan and rare in Occitan, he takes it for a late Germanism, borrowed after the Goths had left their capitals at Toulouse and Barcelona, which also explains why the short /i/ of the Gothic word was treated as in Romance words.^[2] He prefers this explanation of Gamillscheg's to the earlier one of Gamillscheg himself, Meyer-Lübke and Braune, who started from a Gothic noun for “mask”, which he finds unsatisfactory in meaning and too dependent on a link with French grimace.^[2] Spanish also had the verb grimir “to shiver (with cold)” and the adjectives grimiente “horrible, repulsive” and grimoso.^[2]

The older Academy dictionaries derived the word from an Anglo-Saxon word for “ghost” (1884) and then from the Old High German word for “anger” (1899).^[6][7] Covarrubias had preferred a Greek word for “cold”, because a frightened person is left cold and frozen.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Alfonso de Palencia's Latin–Spanish dictionary of 1490, which glosses Latin pavere “to be afraid” as aver grima o miedo “to feel dread or fear”.^[2][3][10] An earlier hit in the CDH, Grima in the Libro del cavallero Cifar (1300–1305, in a late 15th-century copy), is the name of the knight's wife.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Juan del Encina used grima beside cuido and cordojo in an eclogue printed in 1496, and Lucas Fernández had it in his plays of 1514.^[2][10] In Pérez de Hita it is the horror caused by a bull charging through a crowd, and Quevedo mocked dar grima as a stock idiom.^[2] The lexicographers soon took it up: Percyvall in 1591 rendered it as “a fright, the standing up of the hair”, and Covarrubias in 1611 as the horror felt on seeing something dreadful, which leaves one stunned.^[2][11][8] Autoridades defined it in the same way and quoted Quevedo and Arteaga.^[9]

The Academy's dictionary of 1843 described it as unease or a shudder caused by something, with dar, meter, poner grima “to frighten”.^[12] Corominas observed that grima, and above all dar grima, had become colloquial rather than literary, but very much alive in many parts of Spain.^[2] Today it means unease or irritation and the sensation of teeth set on edge.^[4][13] In Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico it means intense fear, in Colombia sorrow, and in Chile a tiny amount.^[14][4][15]

Timeline

• 1300–1305 – Grima as a woman's name in the Libro del cavallero Cifar.^[10]
• 1490 – first record, in Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario.^[2][3][10]
• 1496 – Juan del Encina's eclogue of Carnival has cuido, grima y cordojo.^[2][10]
• 1532 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico: cosa para poner grima “a thing to cause dread”.^[16]
• 1591 – Percyvall's dictionary: “a fright, the standing up of the hair”.^[2][11]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as horror and dread.^[8]
• 1843 – the Academy defines it as unease or a shudder, with dar, meter, poner grima.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy proposes an Anglo-Saxon etymology, replaced in 1899 by Old High German.^[6][7]

Meanings

Noun

1. unease, irritation or disgust caused by something, usually with dar: Me da grima ver la cocina tan sucia.^[4][1][13]
2. The sensation of having one's teeth set on edge, dentera: Ese chirrido de la puerta me da grima.^[4][1][17]
3. (Honduras, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico) Intense fear.^[4][14][18]
4. (Colombia) Sorrow, sadness.^[14]
5. (Chile) A tiny bit, a scrap.^[15][19]

Word family

• grimoso

Related words

• English grim
• Portuguese grima

Usage notes

The word is chiefly colloquial and most often used in the phrase dar grima “to give the creeps, set one's teeth on edge”.^[2][4][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 216
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. grima
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. grima
5. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. grimmaz
6. ^ 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. 542
7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 504
8. ^ 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. 937
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 80
10. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. grima
11. ^ a b Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 372
13. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. grima
14. ^ 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. grima
15. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 440
16. ^ 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. grima
17. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. grima
18. ^ 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. grima
19. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 87