hirviente

Forms

hirviente m or f (masculine and feminine plural hirvientes)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish firviente (also feruient and ferviente), inherited from Latin fervēns (“boiling, red-hot”), the present participle of ferveō (“to boil”).^[1][2][3][4] The DLE analyses it as from Spanish hervir + -nte, and the Academy's 19th-century editions call it the active participle of that verb.^[5][6] The learned doublet ferviente “fervent”, recorded from about 1440, was taken from the same Latin word.^[1][7]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰeru- (“to be hot, boil”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Liber regum (1194–1211, in a copy of the early 13th century) says that Saint John the Evangelist was tortured in a vat of boiling oil, una tina plena de olio feruient.^[9] The Aragonese Fueros of 1247 speak of the ordeals of hot iron and agua feruient “boiling water”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Lapidario uses firuient of boiling wine, and his General Estoria has the full form firviente.^[10][9] In the 13th century the word already had the figurative sense “fervent”: the Escorial New Testament speaks of a firuient espiritu.^[9] That sense passed to the learned ferviente, while hirviente kept the physical meaning.^[1][7] Nebrija records herviente, with the vowel of the infinitive.^[4] Today it means boiling, and Wiktionary also gives “enraged”.^[5][1]

Timeline

• 1194–1211 – the Liber regum has feruient, in a copy of the early 13th century.^[9][2]
• 1247 – the Fueros de Aragón have agua feruient, the first record in a contemporary manuscript.^[9]
• c. 1250 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses firuient of boiling wine.^[10]
• c. 1440 – the learned doublet ferviente appears.^[7]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija has herviente cosa for Latin fervidus.^[4]
• 1591 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City.^[11]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary enters hirviente as the active participle of hervir.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. boiling: Echó la pasta en el agua hirviente.^[5][13][1]
2. (figurative) Seething, intensely hot or agitated; enraged.^[14][1]

Related words

• hervir
• ferviente
• hervor
• Latin fervēns

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. hirviente
3. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
4. ^ a b c 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. hirviente
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. hirviente
6. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 569
7. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hervir
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. hirviente
10. ^ 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. hirviente
11. ^ 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. hirviente
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 390
13. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hirviente
14. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. hirviente