humo

Forms

humo m (plural humos)^[1] Old Spanish wrote fumo;^[2][3] Galician and Old Leonese have fume.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish fumo, inherited from Latin fūmus (“smoke”).^[2][4][5][1] The same word is common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese fumo, Galician fume, Catalan fum, Occitan fum, Italian fumo and Romanian fum, with Aranese ⟨hum⟩.^[2][3][6] Judeo-Spanish has Ladino umo.^[1] The spelling with ⟨h⟩ replaced ⟨f⟩ later: the DTME dates ⟨fumo⟩ from 1087 and ⟨humo⟩ from 1337.^[7]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *fūmos and Proto-Indo-European *dʰuh₂mós (“smoke”).^[1][8] Its cognates are Sanskrit धूम (dhūmá, “smoke”), θυμός (thūmós, “spirit”), Lithuanian dū́mai, Old Church Slavonic дꙑмъ (dymŭ) and Old High German toum (“steam”).^[8][1] De Vaan cites Schrijver's explanation of the long ⟨ū⟩ of Latin, where a shortened vowel would be expected, as analogy with fūlīgō (“soot”) and suffiō.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH's first record is fumo in a charter of 1088, followed by Berceo and the Libro de Alexandre.^[2][4] The earliest literary hit in the CDH is the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy): “alço so fumo como fumo de fornaz” “its smoke rose like the smoke of a furnace”.^[9] Berceo, in Del sacrificio de la misa, describes the censer that “dava más dulz fumo que un dulz lectüario” “gave smoke sweeter than a sweet electuary”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Besides the smoke of a fire, the word named the vapour of anything fermenting, and by the 18th century the households of a village, counted by their hearths, a use Covarrubias had already recorded.^[10] Medieval Latin fumus had the same sense “household”.^[11] Autoridades also lists humo as a thin black silk worn for mourning.^[10] Terreros (18th century) used it for anything vain and empty, and the plural humos “vanity, conceit” was in the Academy's dictionary by 1843, with vender humos “to boast of influence with the powerful” and a humo de pajas “lightly, without purpose”.^[12][13] The last phrase occurs in Quito in 1560.^[14] Bajarle a uno los humos “to take someone down a peg” is in the Academy's dictionary of 1884.^[15]

In Argentina hacerse humo means “to vanish”, and írsele al humo a uno “to go straight at someone”.^[16] In Mexico and Cuba humo names several leguminous trees, and in Cuba it meant drunkenness.^[16][17] The popular derivatives have ⟨h⟩ (humear, ahumar), while fumar, fumigar and esfumar were taken later from French, Latin and Italian.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 1088 – fumo in a charter.^[2][4]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy).^[9]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has fumo.^[18]
• 1337 – first record of the spelling humo in the DTME.^[7]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin fumus and Greek capnos.^[19]
• 1532 – the first record in the Americas, in Mexico City.^[14]
• 1595 – first record of the derivative humareda.^[4]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary has the plural sense “vanity”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. smoke: the visible mixture of gases given off by something burning, which carries particles in suspension: Salía humo negro de la chimenea.^[5][1]
2. vapour given off by something fermenting or hot.^[5][1]
3. Something without substance or importance.^[5]
4. (plural) Households, homes.^[5][10]
5. (plural) vanity, conceit, haughtiness.^[5][1]

Word family

• humareda
• humear
• humillo
• humoso
• ahumar
• sahumar
• humera
• humazo

Related words

• difuminar
• esfumar
• fumar
• fumigar
• humar
• perfume
• Latin fūmus
• Portuguese fumo

Usage notes

Set phrases include bajar los humos “to humble”, echar humo “to be fuming”, a humo de pajas “lightly, in vain” and la del humo, said of someone who leaves and is not expected back.^[5][20]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 427
3. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. fumus
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. humo
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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. humo
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. fumus
7. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. humo
8. ^ a b c 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. fumus
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. humo
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 191
11. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. fumus
12. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 316
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 397
14. ^ a b 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. humo
15. ^ 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
16. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 111
17. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 921
18. ^ 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. humo
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 364
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. humo