gustar

Forms

gustar (first-person singular present gusto, first-person singular preterite gusté, past participle gustado)^[1] Old Spanish had gostar, the usual form until the 15th century;^[1] gustar appears beside it in the Corbacho and becomes the general form from the end of the 15th century.^[2][3] Gostar is still heard in Ecuador, where Corominas takes it for a Quechua pronunciation (Quechua does not distinguish /o/ from /u/), not for a survival of the old form.^[2]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Old Spanish gostar, inherited from Latin gustō (“to taste”).^[2][3][4][1] The form with /u/ is learned: García de Diego calls the modern form a cultismo beside the popular gostar, and Wiktionary describes it as the Latin form taken over again, replacing the inherited one.^[5][1] Corominas explains the learned vowel of the noun gusto by its abstract meaning, and notes that the verb took the same form.^[2]

The Latin verb lives on in Portuguese gostar, Catalan gustar, Occitan gostar, French goûter, Italian gustare and Romanian gusta.^[6][5][1] In Portuguese it also came to mean “to love”.^[6]

gustō is derived from gustus (“taste”), which de Vaan traces to Proto-Indo-European *ǵus-tu- (“taste”), from the root *ǵews- (“to taste”); the OLD compares Ancient Greek γεύομαι (geúomai) and English choose.^[7][8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the CDH is the Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223), which says of a stone that it is very mild in taste, “de sabor de gostar”.^[9] Berceo and the Libro de Alexandre use gostar in the Latin sense “to taste, try”, also figuratively: “quién una vez la gosta, siempre ha de llorar” (whoever tastes it once must always weep).^[9][2] Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the infinitive as a noun for the sense of taste, el sentido del gostar.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages the verb was transitive, with the person who tasted as its subject, and the sense “to taste, try” lasted until the Golden Age.^[2][3] In the 16th and 17th centuries the construction gustar de algo became common, first meaning “to taste” and then “to take pleasure in” (Percyvall 1599, the Quijote 1605).^[2] Covarrubias in 1611 already noted the use “to take satisfaction in a thing”, as in gustar de la música.^[11] The modern intransitive gustar “to please”, with the thing that pleases as subject (me gusta), is absent from the Quijote, Góngora and Covarrubias, and Corominas first finds it in the Diccionario de Autoridades, without examples.^[2][3] The meaning “to like” is a development of Spanish and Portuguese alone;^[1][12] Bénaben compares French goûter “to appreciate”.^[1][12]

The Academy's 1843 dictionary lists “to please, seem good” after the older senses.^[13] Today it is the main sense, and gustar also means to find someone attractive.^[4][14] In Ecuador and Venezuela it has been recorded with the sense of judging or watching a show.^[15][16]

Timeline

• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo has gostar, the first record in the CDH.^[9]
• 1236–1246 – Berceo's Duelo de la Virgen uses gostar (in an 18th-century copy).^[9][2]
• c. 1240–1272 – Herman el Alemán's Psalter has the learned form: Gustad & veet qué bueno es Dios.^[9]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin gusto and degusto for it.^[17]
• 1548 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City and Santo Domingo.^[18]
• 1599 – Percyvall records gustar de “to take pleasure in”.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as perceiving sweet or bitter taste with the tongue.^[11]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades, the first source Corominas finds for the intransitive “to please”.^[19][3]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, Latin gustare.^[20]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To please, be liked; the person who likes is the indirect object: A mi abuela le gusta el café solo.^[4][1]
2. (intransitive) Of a person: to be attractive to another.^[4][1]
3. (intransitive, with de) To enjoy, take pleasure in, be fond of: Gusta de pasear por el puerto.^[4][14]
4. (transitive) To taste, perceive the flavour of something.^[4][1]
5. (transitive) To try, experience.^[4][1]

Word family

• disgustar
• gustoso
• disgusto
• regostarse

Related words

• degustar
• gusto
• pregustar
• Latin gustus
• Portuguese gostar

Usage notes

Gustar is used with an indirect object of the person: the thing liked is the grammatical subject and usually follows the verb, me gustan los libros.^[1][14] ¿Usted gusta? and si usted gusta are polite formulas offering others a share of one's food.^[14] Baralt rejected gustar de la felicidad “to enjoy happiness” as a French construction, keeping gustar de for activities such as running.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 291
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gusto
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. gustar
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3173
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. gustar
10. ^ 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. gustar
11. ^ 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. 954
12. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. gustar
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 377
14. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gustar
15. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 463
16. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. gustar
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 359
18. ^ 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. gustar
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 100
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 549
21. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 340