hoy

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin hodiē (“today”); the Old Spanish form was oy.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin adverb is a compound of hic (“this”) and diēs (“day”), literally “on this day”.^[5][6][1] De Vaan takes the second part as an old ablative, and considers the form of the first part (bare stem, ablative or locative) impossible to decide.^[5]

The word is common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese hoje, Galician hoxe, Asturian güei, Aragonese hue, Catalan avui, Old French hui and Italian oggi.^[2][7][8][1] The Catalan form was vui or hui until fairly recently.^[9]

In the earliest texts the word has two syllables, from a pre-literary *oje, as always in Berceo;^[2][8] Aragonese and Leonese had the diphthong in huey and hué.^[2][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) has the word in the sense “today”: „cuando oy nos partimos, en vida nos faz juntar” “since we part today, bring us together again alive”, and „oy es dia bueno e meior será cras” “today is a good day and tomorrow will be better”.^[10][11][2]

Semantic evolution

Because the word was so short, Old Spanish built an emphatic phrase hoy en este día, found in Berceo and the Libro de Alexandre, which was reduced to hoy en día and hoy día.^[2] The modern language uses these two for “nowadays” and plain hoy for “today”, but in popular Argentine speech hoy día has replaced hoy altogether.^[2] Old Spanish also had des oy más “from today on”, and Juan Ruiz uses d'oy mays for “at once”.^[12][2]

The Academy's dictionary of 1817 records the proverb hoy venida, cras garrida, said of people made proud by their first stroke of luck, and the phrases hoy por hoy and antes hoy que mañana.^[13] The DLE also gives a masculine noun, el hoy “the present”.^[4] In Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay de hoy en más means “from now on”.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has oy.^[10][2]
• 1206 – hoy en día in a document from Toledo.^[2]
• 1239 – hoy día in a document from León.^[2]
• 1256 – Alfonso X's prose has des oy más “from today on”.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary gives oi as an adverb of time, Latin hodie.^[15]
• 1521 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico: oy en este día.^[16]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records hoy venida, cras garrida and hoy por hoy.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin hodie.^[17]

Meanings

Adverb

1. today, on the present day: Hoy no tengo clase.^[4][1]
2. nowadays, at the present time: Hoy casi todo se paga con tarjeta.^[4][18]

Noun

1. The present, the present time.^[4][19]

Word family

• hoy en día
• hoy día

Related words

• día
• Latin hodiē
• Portuguese hoje

Usage notes

Hoy en día and hoy día mean “nowadays”;^[4][18][2] hoy por hoy “for the time being”;^[4][18][2] de hoy en adelante “from today on”.^[4][18][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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, 405
3. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hoy
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. hoy
5. ^ 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, p. s.v. hodiē
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. hoy
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. hodie
8. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. hodie
9. ^ 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. 1, 524
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. hoy
11. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 258
12. ^ 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. hoy
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 478
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. hoy
15. ^ 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. hoy
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. hoy
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. 577
18. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hoy
19. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. hoy