humear

Forms

humear (first-person singular present humeo, first-person singular preterite humeé, past participle humeado)^[1] Old Spanish had fumear and fumeyar, and Nebrija still recorded an intermediate humigar.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish fumeyar, the form of the Libro de Apolonio.^[3][1] Corominas takes it to be inherited from Latin fūmigō (“to treat with smoke”), its ending remade after the Spanish verbs in -ear.^[3] García de Diego also starts from the Latin verb, while Wiktionary passes through a Vulgar Latin *fūmizāre and notes that the word can also be read as a derivative of humo.^[5][1] The DRAE of 2001 derived it from the noun, and the Academy editions of 1884 and 1899 from fūmō (“to smoke”).^[6][7]

The learned fumigar, recorded by the Academy in 1817, is the same Latin word.^[3][8] The verb has cognates in Portuguese fumegar and fumear, Galician fumear, Italian fumicare and Romanian fumega.^[5][9] The Latin verb is formed on fūmus (“smoke”), from Proto-Indo-European *dʰuh₂mós.^[10][11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Fazienda de Ultra Mar (1200–1250) has fumeava and fumeantes “smoking”.^[2] In the Moamín, Alfonso X's treatise on hunting birds (1250–1300), a stick dipped in butter is held over a coal quando fumeare “when it smokes”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades in 1734 noted that the older form was fumear and gave two figurative senses: passions that begin to “smoke”, and a quarrel or lawsuit that still smoulders.^[4] The Academy's 1817 edition added “to give off vapour or steam”, with humear la sangre and humear la tierra.^[13] The sense “to be conceited” appears in Alemany's dictionary of 1917 as old and figurative, and the DLE still lists it.^[14][15] In the Americas the verb means “to fumigate”, a sense the Academy recorded in 1884, and in Chile and Mexico humear a uno is “to thrash someone”.^[7][16][17]

Timeline

• 1200–1250 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has fumeava.^[2]
• 1250–1300 – the Moamín has fumeare.^[12]
• 1481–1496 – the modern form humear in Juan del Encina's poems.^[18]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin fumo, effumo and fumigo as its equivalents.^[19][18]
• 1575 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico.^[20]
• 1734 – Autoridades records the figurative senses and the old form fumear.^[4]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary records the American sense “to fumigate”.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive, also reflexive) To give off smoke: La leña mojada humeaba sin arder.^[15][1]
2. (intransitive) To give off steam or vapour: El caldo humea en la olla.^[15][1]
3. (intransitive, figurative) Of the feelings left by a quarrel or enmity, to linger on.^[15][21]
4. (intransitive) To be conceited, to put on airs.^[15][21]
5. (transitive, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Venezuela) To fumigate (fumigar).^[15][22]
6. (transitive, Chile, Mexico) To thrash someone.^[23][17]

Word family

• humeante

Related words

• ahumar
• humar
• humo
• fumigar
• Latin fūmigō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. humear
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 427
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 190
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2966
6. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. humear
7. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 580
8. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. humo
9. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 309
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. humear
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 480
14. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 920
15. ^ a b c d e f 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. humear
16. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 475
17. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 611
18. ^ 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. humear
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 364
20. ^ 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. humear
21. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. humear
22. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. humear
23. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. humear