heredar

Forms

heredar (first-person singular present heredo, first-person singular preterite heredé, past participle heredado)^[1] Old Spanish wrote both heredar and eredar, and also had aheredar and aeredar.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin hērēditō (“to inherit”).^[4][5][6][1] The Late Latin verb survives in all the Romance languages of Hispania, Gaul, Raetia and Sardinia: Portuguese herdar, Galician herdar, Asturian heredar, Catalan heretar, Old French ireter, French hériter and Sardinian redare.^[4][7][8][9] French remade it after erité (“inheritance”), while the older forms ⟨ireter⟩ and ⟨eriter⟩ lasted until the 15th century.^[10]

The Late Latin verb is a word of the early Bible translations, the Itala and the Vulgate, coined after Ancient Greek κληρονομέω (klēronoméō, “to inherit”); it is formed on hērēditās (“inheritance”), with the loss of one of two similar syllables.^[1][11] That noun comes from hērēs (“heir”), which de Vaan derives from Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰeh₁ro- (“derelict, bereft”) with a suffix -ēd-, comparing Ancient Greek χῆρος (khêros, “bereaved, empty”) and χήρα (khḗra, “widow”).^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a charter of 1097, with the latinised subjunctive eretet.^[4][5] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has the participle in the feudal sense “endowed with estates”: the Cid tells his daughters Id a Carrión, do sodes heredadas “go to Carrión, where you have been given lands”.^[13][3]

Semantic evolution

In Alfonso X's prose the verb meant “to give someone estates”, “to appoint someone one's heir” and “to receive as an inheritance”.^[14] The Diccionario de Autoridades put the legal sense first, “to succeed to all the rights of the dead”, and still had the sense “to give someone property for him and his descendants to hold”.^[15] The Academy's 1817 edition added the figurative sense of children taking after their parents' inclinations and temperament, and marked the senses “to appoint an heir” and “to acquire a piece of land” as old.^[16] It also recorded the saying ¿Heredástelo o ganástelo?, on how easily money that cost no work is squandered, and the 1869 edition the proverb Quien lo hereda no lo hurta, of children who take after their parents.^[16][17]

The 2001 edition has the biological sense of living beings receiving traits from their parents, and the colloquial “to get something someone else has used before”, as clothes passed down from older siblings.^[18][19]

Timeline

• 1097 – a charter has the latinised form eretet.^[4][5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses heredadas “endowed with lands”, in a 14th-century copy.^[13][3]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has heredarla an por sienpre “they shall inherit it for ever”, in a 13th-century copy.^[13]
• 1254 – the Fuero Juzgo uses it for receiving an inheritance.^[14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin heredito for eredar por testamento.^[20]
• 1527 – the first record from the Americas, in Nicaragua.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as acquiring the estate of the deceased by will.^[22]
• 1817 – the Academy records the figurative sense of taking after one's parents.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from heredero;^[23][24] Alemany in 1917 from Latin hereditare.^[23][24]

Meanings

Verb

1. To inherit: to receive something on its owner's death by will or by law: Heredó de su tía una casa en el pueblo.^[6][1]
2. To succeed someone, by will or by law, in the property and rights he had at the time of his death.^[6]
3. To receive something that comes from an earlier situation, such as debts or problems.^[6][19]
4. To appoint someone as one's heir.^[6]
5. (biology) Of living beings: to receive traits from their parents.^[6][18]
6. (colloquial) To get something that someone else has used before, as a hand-me-down.^[6][19]
7. (rare) To give someone estates or landed property.^[18]

Word family

• desheredar
• heredamiento
• coheredar

Related words

• heredad
• heredero
• herencia
• hereditario
• Latin hērēs
• Portuguese herdar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. heredar
3. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 227
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 344
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. heredad
6. ^ 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. heredar
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4113
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. hereditare
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. heretar
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
11. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
14. ^ 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. heredar
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 140
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 465
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 407
18. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. heredar
19. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. heredar
20. ^ 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. heredar
21. ^ 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. heredar
22. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 970
23. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 560
24. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 883