hacer

Forms

hacer (first-person singular present hago, first-person singular preterite hice, past participle hecho)^[1] Old Spanish wrote fazer and facer, and beside them had the short infinitives fer and far.^[2] Far (in the Cid, Berceo, the Alexandre and Juan Ruiz) goes back to a shortened infinitive of late colloquial Latin, which also gave Italian fare and lives on in the future haré and the conditional haría.^[2][3] Fer is found from the Glosas Emilianenses to the Rimado de Palacio, is frequent in medieval Aragonese, and later marks rustic speech in the classical theatre; it is still used in Upper Aragon and Asturias, and old Jewish speakers in Morocco said her and hendo.^[2][4] The first person hago and the subjunctive haga continue old Vulgar Latin types *faco and *facam, which also survive in Italian dialects.^[2] Wiktionary mentions a possible influence of Latin agō, but prefers a voicing of /k/ after the loss of /i/ (faciō > [ˈfa.ko] > hago).^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish fazer, inherited from Latin faciō (“to make, do”).^[2][5][6][1] The oldest record is the short infinitive fere of the Glosas Emilianenses, and a charter of 1030 has facer.^[2][5]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese fazer, Galician facer, Asturian facer, Aragonese fer, Catalan fer, French faire, Italian fare and Romanian face.^[7][4][8] Corominas, following Meyer-Lübke, explains the infinitives of French, Occitan and Catalan and Old Spanish fer from a Vulgar Latin base *fagere, remodelled on verbs such as agō and legō, whose past participles matched that of the verb “to make”.^[2] He rejects the explanations of Kuen and Bourciez, and notes that the French and Occitan forms cannot come regularly from the classical verb.^[2]

The Latin verb is from Proto-Italic *fakjō.^[1] De Vaan thinks the final /k/ of its root probably arose in the root aorist of Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁- (“to put”), so that the verb is akin to Ancient Greek τίθημι (títhēmi, “to put”).^[9][10]

The ⟨f⟩ of the Latin and Old Spanish forms gave way to ⟨h⟩: Covarrubias in 1611 writes the verb with ⟨h⟩ and explains it as the old form with ⟨f⟩.^[11] The aspiration once written ⟨h⟩ survives in the dialect form jacer of Cantabria and Andalusia, while the standard pronunciation begins with the vowel.^[4][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Glosas Emilianenses, of about 950, have the short infinitive fere, and a charter of 1030 the form facer.^[2][5] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) already uses fazer in the general sense “to do, carry out”: „La oración fecha, luego cavalgava” “the prayer said, he mounted at once”.^[12][2]

Semantic evolution

In the prose of Alfonso X the verb means to produce a bodily thing, to carry out an action and to cause something, and it is also a noun, fazeres “deeds”.^[13] Covarrubias in 1611 lists a long series of phrases, from hazer la barba “to shave” to hazer calor, said of the weather.^[11][14] Autoridades describes its irregular forms, hago and haga with ⟨g⟩ and the preterite with ⟨i⟩.^[15]

Corominas notes some constructions: hacerse “to seem” is very much alive in popular Argentine speech and has older Spanish antecedents, hacer el amor meant “to court” and is not always an imitation of French, and hacerse de rogar “to play hard to get” is usual by the 16th century.^[2] Spain now says qué se hizo de…, while Latin America keeps the older construction qué se hicieron… of Jorge Manrique.^[2] Several Latin American countries use hacerse for “to pretend”.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 950 – the Glosas Emilianenses record the short infinitive fere.^[2][5]
• 1030 – a charter has facer.^[2][5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses fazer and far.^[2][12]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the verb for producing, doing and causing.^[13]
• 1272–1275 – the General estoria uses the noun fazeres “deeds”.^[13]
• 1611 – Covarrubias writes hazer and lists many of its phrases.^[11]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades describes the irregular forms hago, haga.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin facere.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make, produce or create something.^[6][1]
2. To make or build a thing, giving it its form: Hicimos una mesa de pino.^[6][1]
3. To do, carry out an action or task: ¿Qué haces esta tarde?^[6][1]
4. To cause or bring about: El ruido le hizo despertar.^[13][1]
5. To prepare food; to write or compose a text.^[1]
6. (impersonal) Of the weather: Hoy hace mucho frío.^[1][14]
7. (impersonal) Of time that has passed, “ago”: Llegaron hace tres semanas.^[1][18]
8. (hacer de) To act as, play the part of.^[1]
9. (hacerse) To become: Con los años se hizo médico.^[1]
10. (hacerse) To pretend to be: hacerse el dormido.^[1][16]
11. (hacerse a) To get used to.^[1]

Word family

• hacedero
• hacedor
• hacienda
• hecho
• hechura
• fechoría
• deshacer
• contrahacer
• rehacer
• quehacer
• hechizo
• fecha

Related words

• facción
• fácil
• facultad
• Latin faciō
• Portuguese fazer

Usage notes

Old Spanish used the infinitive as a noun, fazeres “deeds”.^[13] Wiktionary still lists the noun hacer (plural haceres), and Bénaben notes the set phrases el buen hacer and el saber hacer “know-how”.^[1][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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, 297
3. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
4. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. facere
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hacer
6. ^ a b c d 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. hacer
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. facere
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1536
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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. 956
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. hacer
13. ^ a b c d e 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. hacer
14. ^ 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. 957
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 111
16. ^ 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. hacer
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. 553
18. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 342