hijo

Forms

hijo m (plural hijos, feminine hija, feminine plural hijas, diminutive hijito)^[1] Old Spanish wrote fijo (also fiio, fiyo, fillo, filio); an Aragonese document of 1062 has filgo.^[2][3] Before de the word was shortened very early to fi, later hi: fi de nemiga in the Libro de Apolonio and the Libro de Alexandre, and in insults such as hi de puta into the Golden Age.^[2] Asturian has fíu or fiyu;^[4][5] Galician and Aragonese fillo.^[2][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish fijo, inherited from Latin fīlius (“son”).^[2][6][1][4] The word is common to all periods of Spanish and to all the Romance languages.^[2]

The same Latin word gave Portuguese filho, Galician fillo, Asturian fíu, Aragonese fillo, Catalan fill, Occitan filh, French fils, Italian figlio and Romanian fiu.^[4][1][7] Judeo-Spanish has Ladino ijo.^[1]

fīlius goes back to Proto-Italic *fīlios.^[8][1] De Vaan derives it from an Indo-European adjective meaning “suckling”, Proto-Indo-European *dʰh₁i-l-, formed from the root *dʰeh₁(y)- (“to suck”), which is also the root of fēmina and fēlīx.^[8][1] The DHLF notes that the word first meant “nursling” before it replaced the old Indo-European word for “son”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Glosas Silenses, of the second half of the 10th century, have the Latinising spelling filio, and fijo is recorded in 1100 and in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[2] The Cid already has fijo dalgo, the origin of hidalgo, literally “son of something”.^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose uses fijo for a child of its parents, for a native of a land (los fijos de Israel), for descendants, and as a form of address to a younger person.^[11] Corominas sees in expressions of the type hijo de + noun, describing a person by a quality (fi de nemiga “son of enmity”, hijo de la fortuna “lucky man”, hijo de la piedra “foundling”), a calque of the use of Arabic ابن (ibn, “son”); he asks whether hijo de Málaga “native of Málaga”, found only in the Hispanic languages, has the same source.^[2][7]

The Diccionario de Autoridades extended the word to offshoots of plants and to members of a religious house.^[12] The Academy's 1817 edition adds the inner core of an animal's horn and the use for a son-in-law or daughter-in-law.^[13] In Mexico, Cuba and Puerto Rico mi hijo is a familiar form of address, and hijo after a name marks a son with his father's name and surname: Juan Pérez, hijo.^[14][15] In Puerto Rico and the Canaries it also names a shoot of sugar cane or banana.^[16][17]

Timeline

• 900s – the Glosas Silenses have filio.^[2]
• 1062 – an Aragonese document has filgo and the verb afilgar “to adopt”.^[2]
• 1100 – the form fijo is recorded.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has fijo and fijo dalgo.^[2][10]
• 1185 – the shortened fi before de appears in charters.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it with Latin filius and natus.^[18]
• 1517 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias distinguishes hijo legítimo, bastardo, adoptivo and póstumo.^[20]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, Latin filius.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. son, or in the feminine hija daughter: a person or animal in relation to its parents; in the masculine plural, children of either sex.^[6][1]
2. A native of a country, region or town: Es hija de Cádiz.^[6]
3. A member of a religious order in relation to its founder or the house where they took the habit.^[6]
4. A work or product of someone's mind.^[6]
5. A term of endearment or familiar address: Ven aquí, hijo, que te veo cansado.^[6][22]
6. (colloquial) A son-in-law or daughter-in-law (hijo político).^[6]
7. A shoot or offshoot of a plant.^[6][22]
8. The spongy bone inside an animal's horn.^[6]
9. (Christianity, written Hijo) The Son, second person of the Trinity.^[6]
10. (in the plural) Descendants.^[6]

Word family

• hijastro
• ahijar
• prohijar
• hidalgo
• hijuelo
• hijuela
• ahijado

Related words

• feligrés
• filial
• afiliar
• Latin fīlius
• Portuguese filho

Usage notes

Cada hijo de vecino and cualquier hijo de vecino mean “anybody”.^[6] The masculine plural hijos covers sons and daughters together.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 359
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. hijo, a
4. ^ a b c d García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2788
5. ^ a b Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. fíu
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. hijo, ja
7. ^ a b Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 3, 1030
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. fils
10. ^ a b Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 293
11. ^ 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. hijo
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, s.v. hijo
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 469
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. hijo, ja
15. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 95
16. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. hijo
17. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. hijo, DHECan
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 362
19. ^ 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. fijo
20. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 980
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 527
22. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hijo