hinchar

Forms

hinchar (first-person singular present hincho, first-person singular preterite hinché, past participle hinchado)^[1] Old Spanish wrote inchar (Berceo's inchado) and finchar (Juan Ruiz's finchado); the spelling with h appears in Alfonso de Palencia and Nebrija.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish finchar, inherited from Latin īnflō (“to blow into; to inflate”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from in- and flō (“to blow”).^[5][2] Its learned doublet is inflar, recorded from 1444.^[3][1]

The Latin verb began with a vowel, so the ⟨h⟩ of the Spanish word needs explaining.^[2] Corominas sees a metathesis: in prehistoric times the word was pronounced with an aspirated, voiceless /l/ after the /n/, and the aspiration moved to the front of the word, giving *hinláre and then the modern form.^[2] The Aranese form holá (“to swell”) shows the same change, and hallar a similar one.^[2] Portuguese inchar and Galician inchar, without any ⟨f⟩, show that it was a metathesis of the aspiration and not a cross with a word beginning with ⟨f⟩.^[2] The ⟨f⟩ of the Old Spanish form belongs to speakers who used an artificial /f/ for every aspirated ⟨h⟩.^[2] Wiktionary likewise speaks of a spread of the medial consonant.^[1] Covarrubias had called the word a corruption of the learned verb, with ⟨fl⟩ turned into ⟨ch⟩.^[6] The Academy once derived it from henchir, from implēre.^[7]

The same Latin verb is Asturian hinchar, Catalan unflar, Occitan enflar, French enfler, Italian enfiare and Romanian umfla.^[8][9] The simple verb may go back to *bʰleh₁- (“to blow”), though de Vaan marks the reconstruction as doubtful.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the participle inchado in Berceo's Milagros and Vida de San Millán.^[2] In the Vida de San Millán (c. 1230, known from an 18th-century copy) a sick man avié de los umores el vientre tan inchado “had his belly so swollen with humours”.^[11] The Fuero de Alcalá (c. 1235) uses inchado for a swelling left by a bite.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose uses the verb for filling something with air, for a swelling of the body and for a river rising.^[12] Covarrubias in 1611 also called the vainly presumptuous hinchado.^[6] Autoridades gave the figurative sense “to make proud”, quoting the frog in the Quijote that tried to match the ox.^[13] Finchado survived in familiar use for someone ridiculously conceited.^[2]

The noun hincha meant “hatred, grudge” in Quevedo; in Argentina it came to mean a passionate supporter of a sports club, and the verb now means “to support a team” there and in Paraguay and Uruguay.^[2][4][14] In Mexico and the Southern Cone hinchar also means “to annoy”.^[4][14] A newer sense is “to inflate figures fraudulently”.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1230 – inchado in Berceo's Vida de San Millán (in an 18th-century copy).^[11][2]
• c. 1235 – inchado in the Fuero de Alcalá.^[11]
• 1240–1250 – finchando in the Libro de Alexandre (in an early 15th-century copy).^[11]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it of a swollen belly.^[12]
• 1272–1275 – the General Estoria uses it of rivers.^[12]
• 1444 – first record of the learned doublet inflar.^[3]
• 1490 – hinchazón (earlier finchazón) in Alfonso de Palencia.^[3][2]
• 1495 – deshinchar in Nebrija.^[3][2]
• 1519 – first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from inflar.^[6]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin inflare.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also pronominal) To inflate; to make something larger by filling it with a fluid, especially a gas: Hinchó los globos para la fiesta.^[4][1]
2. (transitive, also pronominal) To make a person or part of the body swell: Se le hinchó el tobillo.^[4][1]
3. (transitive, also pronominal) To swell the waters of a river or stream.^[4]
4. (transitive) To exaggerate a piece of news or an event.^[4][1]
5. (Argentina, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay) To annoy.^[4][14]
6. (intransitive, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay) To support a sports team enthusiastically.^[4][14]
7. (pronominal) To do something to excess, such as eating or drinking; to stuff oneself.^[4][1]
8. (pronominal) To become conceited or proud.^[4]

Word family

• hincha
• hinchada
• hinchado
• hinchazón
• hinchamiento
• deshinchar

Related words

• hinchapelotas
• inflar
• inflación
• henchir
• Latin inflo
• Portuguese inchar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 365
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hinchar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. hinchar
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ 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. 982
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 375
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. unflar
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 c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. hinchar
12. ^ a b c 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. hinchar
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 160
14. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. hinchar
15. ^ Universidad de Murcia, NEOMA: Diccionario de neologismos del español actual (online), p. s.v. hinchar
16. ^ 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. finchar
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. 568