guardar

Forms

guardar (first-person singular present guardo, first-person singular preterite guardé, past participle guardado)^[1] Old Spanish also had gardar and goardar, and Old Aragonese güerdar.^[2][3] The imperative guárdate was contracted to guarte in the 14th–16th centuries.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Proto-Germanic *wardōn (“to watch, guard”), a verb that Vulgar Latin had already taken from common West Germanic, and it is shared by all the western Romance languages.^[4][5][6] Wiktionary gives the intermediate step as Medieval Latin wardāre, which Niermeyer records for herding cattle and guarding a castle.^[1][7] The DLE derives the verb from the noun guarda, which Corominas thinks more likely a later borrowing or a noun formed from the verb.^[8][4]

The Germanic verb is seen in Old High German wartēn (“to wait, look out”), Old Saxon wardōn (“to guard, beware”), Old English weardian (“to guard, keep”) and Old Norse varða (“to guard”).^[4][9] It was formed from the noun *wardō (“watch, guard”), itself from a verb meaning “to pay attention”.^[4][9] Köbler and Gómez de Silva trace the root to Proto-Indo-European *wer- (“to perceive, heed”).^[6][10]

The same verb is Portuguese guardar and Catalan guardar, and Basque borrowed it as gordatu.^[2] The sense “to look”, common in Italian and in Old Occitan and Catalan, was not unknown to Aragonese.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy): the moneylenders would keep the Cid's chests safe fasta cabo del año “until the end of the year”.^[11][5] The poem uses it for keeping a deposit or a prisoner safe and for guarding a gate or a fortress.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish senses that are now obsolete include “to wait for”, “to prevent”, “to watch what someone does” and “to respect”.^[8] The 1208 Cortes of León use it of keeping things intact for a successor, and early religious texts of keeping commandments.^[11] Covarrubias recorded the proverb quien guarda halla “he who saves, finds”, guardarse “to beware of”, guardársela a uno “to bear a grudge”, and guardar las fiestas “to keep the feast days”.^[13] The Autoridades of 1734 put first the sense of putting money, jewels or clothes in safe keeping.^[14]

The imperative ¡guarda! is used, above all in the Americas, as an interjection “look out!”, which was shortened to ¡gua!, an exclamation of fear or surprise in Venezuela, Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.^[4] In several Latin American countries guardar colloquially means to put someone in prison.^[15] In computing it is the usual verb for saving a file.^[1]

Timeline

• 1129 – the noun guarda in a charter.^[4][5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has guardar and aguardar.^[4][11]
• 1208 – the Cortes of León, the first record without a later copy.^[11]
• c. 1330 – guardián, from Gothic.^[5]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin custodio and servo.^[16]
• 1570 – guardia first recorded, perhaps an Italian military loan.^[4][5]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records quien guarda halla.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from Old High German warten.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To guard, watch over and protect someone or something: Los perros guardan la finca.^[8][1]
2. (transitive) To put something away in a safe place; to keep: Guarda las fotos en un cajón.^[8][1]
3. (transitive) To observe or fulfil an obligation: guardar las normas, guardar una promesa.^[8]
4. (transitive) To keep or maintain: guardar silencio.^[8]
5. (transitive) To keep back, retain, save for later.^[8][1]
6. (transitive) To be stingy, not spend.^[8]
7. (transitive) To protect something from harm.^[8]
8. (transitive, computing) To save a file.^[1]
9. (transitive, obsolete) To wait for; to prevent; to respect.^[8]
10. (pronominal) To be on one's guard against a danger; to take care not to do something: Me guardaré de volver allí.^[8]
11. (transitive, Latin America, colloquial) To put someone in prison.^[15]

Word family

• guarda
• guardador
• guardoso
• guardería
• aguardar
• resguardar
• guardarropa
• guardapolvo

Related words

• guardia
• guardián
• vanguardia
• French garder
• Portuguese guardar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7308
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. guardar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 246
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. guardar
6. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. guardar
9. ^ a b Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 338
11. ^ 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, p. s.v. guardar
12. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. guardar
13. ^ 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. 945
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 89
15. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. guardar
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 358
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 545