inundar

Forms

inundar (first-person singular present inundo, first-person singular preterite inundé, past participle inundado)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin inundō (“to flood, overflow”), a learned word.^[2][3][1] Corominas dates it from about 1580, but the CDH has it two centuries earlier, in an Aragonese translation of the late 14th century.^[2][4]

The Latin verb was also taken into Portuguese inundar and Catalan inundar, and became Italian inondare and French inonder, in Old French enonder.^[5][6][7][8]

The OLD analyses the Latin verb as in- and undō (“to rise in waves, surge”), which Wiktionary derives from unda (“wave”).^[9][1] Gómez de Silva explains the compound literally as “to flow in”.^[10] De Vaan traces the noun to Proto-Indo-European *ud-ōr, an old word for water, the source also of Ancient Greek ὕδωρ (húdōr).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the CDH is Juan Fernández de Heredia's translation of Eutropius (1377–1399), with the verb used of the Tiber: Timbris fluui sobreixio et inunda “the river Tiber overflowed and flooded”.^[4] Nebrija's Spanish–Latin vocabulary of 1495 still renders avenir el río “of a river, to flood” with Latin diluo and inundo.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Fernández de Oviedo, in the mid-16th century, wrote that the Nile inunda e riega la tierra del Egipto “floods and waters the land of Egypt”.^[4] The Autoridades defined it as covering the fields with water when the sea or rivers overflow, naturally or by art, and gave a figurative sense: to spread customs among a people, or to fill a place with strangers or other things.^[12] The figurative sense stayed in the Academy's dictionaries of the 19th century, and the reflexive use was noted from 1843.^[13][14] Today the verb is also used of crowds filling a place, of a feeling that overwhelms someone, and in naval language of flooding a tank or a ship.^[3]

Timeline

• 1377–1399 – first record, in Juan Fernández de Heredia's translation of Eutropius.^[4]
• 1535–1557 – Fernández de Oviedo uses it of the Nile.^[4]
• c. 1580 – the date the BDELC gives for the word.^[2]
• 1636 – first record in the Americas, in Potosí.^[15]
• 1734 – the Autoridades records the literal and figurative senses.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin inundare.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also pronominal) Of water: to flood or cover a place or an area: El río inundó los campos de la vega.^[3][1]
2. (transitive, also pronominal) To fill or cover a place with water or another liquid.^[3][17]
3. (transitive, also pronominal) Of a great number of people or things: to fill a place, to swamp it: Los visitantes inundaron la plaza.^[3][17]
4. (transitive) Of an emotion or feeling: to overwhelm someone.^[3]
5. (transitive, nautical) To fill a tank, a compartment or a ship with water.^[3]

Word family

• inundación

Related words

• onda
• abundar
• redundar
• Latin unda

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. onda
3. ^ 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. inundar
4. ^ 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. inundar
5. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1921
6. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. inundar
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. inonder
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 392
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 Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 300
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 414
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 565
15. ^ 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. inundar
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 606
17. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. inundar