heñir

Forms

heñir (first-person singular present hiño, first-person singular preterite heñí, past participle heñido)^[1] The present has i in the stressed forms: hiño, hiñes, hiña.^[2][1] Dialect forms are hiñir in Andalusia and the Bierzo and jenir in Salamanca;^[1] Cespedosa has the present iñe.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish *fennir in Wiktionary's reconstruction, inherited from Latin fingō (“to knead, to shape”).^[1][5][4] Corominas calls it the popular doublet of fingir, which was taken from the same Latin verb as a learned word.^[4] A Latin document from León of 1020 already uses the verb for kneading bread.^[4] The CDH records the Leonese form fiñir in the Romance text of the Concilio de León.^[6]

Catalan fènyer is the same Latin verb, and has the same sense of working dough.^[7][8]

The Latin verb goes back to the Proto-Italic verb for kneading and forming, from a nasal present Proto-Indo-European *dʰi-n-ǵʰ- of the root *dʰeyǵʰ-.^[9] Related words are Oscan feíhúss (“walls”), Ancient Greek τεῖχος (teîkhos, “wall”) and English dough.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is in the Romance version of the Concilio de León (c. 1250): no woman living in León may be brought á fiñir el pan del Re “to knead the king's bread” unless she is his servant.^[6] In Castilian the word appears in Juan del Encina (1481–1496), in a poem on the bread that came down from heaven, muy heñido y sovado en la tabla de la Cruz “well kneaded and worked on the board of the Cross”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed with dough and bread.^[5][4] In Francisco Delicado's Lozana andaluza (1528) some women earn their living kneading, lo ganan a heñir.^[6] The Diccionario de Autoridades quoted Sigüenza (1600), whose informant had been a baker for fifteen years and knew well how to knead.^[2][4] The Academy's dictionary of 1843 recorded the familiar phrase hay mucho que heñir, said when much work is still needed to finish something.^[11] Corominas derives the kneading table hintero from a Vulgar Latin noun formed on the participle of the same verb.^[4]

Timeline

• 1020 – a Latin document from León uses fingere for kneading bread.^[4]
• c. 1250 – the Romance text of the Concilio de León has the Leonese fiñir.^[6]
• 1481–1496 – Juan del Encina has heñido.^[6]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records heñir.^[4][12]
• 1528 – Francisco Delicado's Lozana andaluza.^[6]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[13]
• 1600 – Sigüenza's history, quoted by the Diccionario de Autoridades.^[4][2]
• 1843 – the Academy records hay mucho que heñir.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To knead dough with the fists, especially bread dough: La panadera hiñó la masa antes del amanecer.^[5][1]

Related words

• fingir
• hintero
• Latin fingō
• Catalan fènyer

Usage notes

Hay mucho que heñir (colloquial) means that much work is still needed to finish something.^[14][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 139
3. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. fingere
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. 2, 901
5. ^ a b c 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. heñir
6. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. heñir
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. fingere
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. fènyer
9. ^ a b 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 Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 383
12. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 293
13. ^ 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. heñir
14. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. heñir