haber

Forms

haber (first-person singular present he, first-person singular preterite hube, past participle habido)^[1] Old Spanish wrote the verb aver;^[2] Autoridades argued that it should be spelt haber because it comes from Latin habere.^[3][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish aver, inherited from Latin habēre (“to have, hold, possess”).^[3][4][5][6] The same Latin verb is Portuguese haver, Catalan haver, Asturian haber, Aragonese aber, French avoir, Italian avere and Romanian avea.^[7][8][1][6] The old imperatives evás and evad “behold, here is” come from the Latin subjunctives habeas and habeatis.^[3]

Wiktionary derives the Latin verb from Proto-Italic *habēō, perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeh₁bʰ- (“to grab, take”), and notes that the Oscan and Umbrian forms with ⟨b⟩ leave the exact origin unclear; the Latin verb is not related to English have, which is cognate with capiō (“to take”).^[1] De Vaan reconstructs a present “to take” and compares Old Irish gaibid (“takes”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb aver is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140) and in charters of the 12th century, both as the verb of possession and as an auxiliary.^[3][4] The nominalised infinitive, aver “goods, wealth”, is recorded from 1220–1250, in Berceo.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The main event in the medieval history of haber is its gradual loss of the sense “to have, possess” to tener.^[3] Tener begins to take its place sporadically in the Cid; in the 14th century aver was still the usual verb of possession, in the 15th it was in decline, and Nebrija (1492) already gives tener as the Spanish for Latin habeo.^[3][10] By Cervantes's time only remnants were left, such as habérselas con “to have it out with” and haber “to get hold of”.^[3] Catalan went the same way, and Portuguese further, replacing haver with ter even as the auxiliary.^[3]

As an impersonal verb of existence it was combined from the beginning with the adverb y “there”, which fused with the present into hay.^[3][11] Autoridades still put “to possess” first, called the subjunctive haiga barbarous, and defined the auxiliary of the compound tenses.^[2] The noun, already “wealth, goods” in Alfonso X, took the bookkeeping sense “credit side” in the 19th century: the Academy recorded it in 1869.^[12][13]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – aver in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[4][3]
• 1220–1250 – the first record of the noun aver “goods”.^[4]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X uses the verb for “to possess” and “to get hold of”, and the noun for wealth.^[12]
• 1492 – Nebrija translates Latin habeo as tener o aver.^[10]
• 1494 – the first record in the Americas, at Santo Domingo.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias enters the verb under aver, with the proverb Mas vale saber, que auer.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades prescribes the spelling haber instead of aver.^[2]
• 1869 – the Academy records the noun as one side of a current account.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (auxiliary) Used with the past participle to form the perfect tenses: he leído “I have read”.^[5][1]
2. (auxiliary) With de and an infinitive, expresses obligation or necessity: han de venir “they are to come”.^[5][1]
3. (transitive) To get hold of, lay hands on.^[5]
4. (obsolete) To possess, have.^[5][1]
5. (impersonal) To happen, take place: hubo un apagón “there was a power cut”.^[5]
6. (impersonal) With que and an infinitive, to be necessary: hay que esperar “one must wait”.^[5][1]
7. (impersonal) To be present somewhere; to exist: hay “there is, there are”.^[5][1]
8. (impersonal) With an expression of time, marks the time elapsed: tiempo ha “long ago”.^[5][1]
9. (reflexive) To behave well or badly.^[5]

Noun

1. Property, wealth, the goods and rights belonging to a person or body; mostly in the plural, haberes.^[5][16][1]
2. Pay received periodically for services; mostly in the plural.^[16]
3. (accounting) The credit side of a current account, opposite debe.^[16][1]
4. Merits or good qualities of someone or something: tener algo en su haber.^[16][17]

Word family

• habiente
• haberío

Related words

• tener
• hábil
• hábito
• habitar
• Latin habeo
• Portuguese haver

Usage notes

The present hay is ha with the old adverb y “there”.^[11][3] The Academy's dictionaries of 1884 and 1917 also had a minor homograph haber, a title of Jewish scholars below a rabbi, from Hebrew.^[18][19]

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 Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. haber
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 294
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. haber
5. ^ 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. haber
6. ^ a b Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. habere
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3187
9. ^ 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. habeō
10. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. haber
11. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. haber
12. ^ 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. haber
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 401
14. ^ 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. haber
15. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 244
16. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. haber
17. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. haber
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 551
19. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 868