hijastro

Forms

hijastro m (plural hijastros, feminine hijastra, feminine plural hijastras)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin fīliaster (“stepson”), formed from fīlius (“son”) with the suffix -aster.^[2][1][3] Medieval Latin used the word for a stepson, a bastard son, a grandson born of a daughter and a son-in-law.^[4] The Academy, from 1884, called the word a pejorative of hijo and glossed the Latin masculine and feminine as “son-in-law” and “daughter-in-law”.^[5][6] The DCECH lists it among the derivatives of the noun for “son”.^[7][8]

The same Latin word is Italian figliastro, Romanian fiastru, French fillâtre, Old Occitan filhastre^[3][1] and Galician fillastro.^[9]

The Latin word for “son” first meant “suckling”: de Vaan derives it from an adjective formed on Proto-Indo-European *dʰeh₁(i)- (“to suck”).^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Nebrija's Spanish–Latin vocabulary of about 1495, where hijastro is explained as “almost a son” and rendered by Latin filiaster.^[8][11][12] Old Spanish had said antenado for a stepchild, a word that Berceo uses with this sense.^[13][14]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as the child of a first marriage and paired it with padrastro, as hijastra with madrastra.^[15] The Autoridades treated it as a synonym of alnado, with a quotation from Lope de Vega's Peregrino.^[16] Terreros gave French beau-fils and Latin privignus, and the Academy defined it from 1817 as the child that one of the spouses brings to a new marriage.^[17][18] Moliner lists alnado, antenado and entenado as synonyms.^[19] The suffix -astro is the same as in poetastro, a word for a bad poet.^[20]

The first records from the Americas are from Ecuador in 1932; a Mexican text of 1940 also calls the extra shoots of a banana plant hijastros.^[21]

Timeline

• 1052 – the older word for a stepchild, antenado, is recorded in a Nájera document as addenantato.^[14]
• c. 1230–1260 – Berceo uses antenado for a stepchild.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records hijastro.^[8][11]
• 1611 – Covarrubias pairs it with padrastro.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – the Autoridades defines it as alnado.^[16]
• 1817 – the Academy defines it as the child one of the spouses brings to a new marriage.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology, Latin filiaster.^[5]
• 1932 – the first record from the Americas, in Ecuador.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. stepson;^[1] hijastra stepdaughter: the child of one's spouse from an earlier union: Trata a su hijastro como a un hijo más.^[2][1]

Related words

• hijo
• padrastro
• madrastra
• entenado
• Latin fīliaster
• Italian figliastro

Usage notes

The feminine is hijastra.^[2][1] Entenado and alnado mean the same.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. hijastro
3. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
4. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
5. ^ 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. 566
6. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 527
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 359
8. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hijo
9. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 293
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 362
12. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
13. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 39
14. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. antenado
15. ^ 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. 980
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 155
17. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 288
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 469
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hijastro
20. ^ Barcia, Roque (1880–1883), Primer diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Álvarez Hermanos, p. 1171
21. ^ a b 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. hijastro