guadañar

Forms

guadañar (first-person singular present guadaño, first-person singular preterite guadañé, past participle guadañado)^[1]

Etymology

It is a derivative from Spanish guadaña (“scythe”), as Corominas argues: it is much later and less used than the noun.^[2][3][4] The noun goes back to the Germanic root of *waiþō (“meadow, pasture”), probably through an adjective *watania “for meadows”, said of the sickle; compare Old High German weida and German Weide (“pasture”).^[2][3]

Diez and Meyer-Lübke had given the verb the origin of Italian guadagnare, Catalan guanyar and Old French gaaignier (“to cultivate the land”), a West Germanic verb *waidanjan (“to cultivate the land”), and Brüch and Gamillscheg held it to be an early loan from French.^[2] Corominas rejects both views: a Gallicism is unlikely in a word for mowing, the firm /d/ of the Ibero-Romance forms could not come from early French, and the late date of the verb shows that the likeness to the Italian and Catalan family is deceptive.^[2] Portuguese gadanhar likewise appears only at the end of the 18th century, long after gadanha (“scythe”).^[2]

Wiktionary instead derives the verb, through guadanyar, from Vulgar Latin *wadaniāre, from Frankish *waiþanōn, the verb that took the sense “to win, earn” in most other Romance languages.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the verb once in Oudin's dictionary of 1607; it is absent from Palencia, Nebrija, Covarrubias and the other dictionaries of the period, and the usual phrase was segar con guadaña “to mow with a scythe”.^[2][3] Terreros (1765–1783) defines it as clearing land with a scythe.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

Corominas writes that Autoridades (1734) still lacks the verb, though it has guadañero, and that the Academy's dictionary first has it in 1884.^[2] Our copies of the Academy's dictionary show it earlier, in the edition of 1869, defined as mowing hay or grass with the scythe, and Salvá had it in 1846.^[6][7] Today it means mowing grain or grass with a scythe.^[8][9][10] Its agent noun guadañador is more recent still;^[2] guadañero and guadañil are older names for the mower.^[2]

Timeline

• 1099 – an Aragonese charter in Latin has gadannare, which DEMel files under this lemma;^[11][2] Corominas separates such forms of the Catalan guanyar type from the Castilian verb.^[11][2]
• early 15th century – first record of the noun guadaña, in the Cancionero de Baena.^[2][3]
• 1607 – Oudin records the verb.^[2][3]
• 1734 – Autoridades has guadañero but not the verb.^[2][3]
• 1765–1783 – Terreros defines it as clearing land with a scythe.^[5]
• 1846 – Salvá: to mow or cut with the scythe.^[7]
• 1869 – the Academy's dictionary: to mow hay or grass with the scythe.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. To mow or cut grass or grain with a scythe (guadaña): Guadañaron el prado antes de las lluvias.^[8][9][1]

Word family

• guadañador

Related words

• guadaña
• ganar
• Portuguese gadanhar
• Catalan guanyar
• Italian guadagnare

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 234
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. guadaña
4. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. guadañar
5. ^ 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, 243
6. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 395
7. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 564
8. ^ a b 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. guadañar
9. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. guadañar
10. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. guadañar
11. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. guadañar