jugar

Forms

jugar (first-person singular present juego, first-person singular preterite jugué, past participle jugado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish jogar, inherited from Latin iocor (“to jest, joke”), a verb formed on iocus (“joke, jest”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin verb took the place of ludere (“to play”).^[5] The form with ⟨o⟩ was usual from the 12th to the 14th century; the Cantar de mio Cid has both ⟨jogar⟩ and ⟨jugar⟩, and ⟨jugar⟩ is general from the 15th century.^[2][3]

The /u/ is irregular, and it gave the only Spanish verb with a ⟨u⟩ / ⟨ue⟩ alternation (⟨jugar⟩, ⟨juego⟩).^[1] Corominas rejects Menéndez Pidal's starting point Vulgar Latin *jucare and his comparison with ruido or pulgar, and suggests that the diphthong of the stressed forms spread to the rest of the verb (⟨juoga⟩, then ⟨juogar⟩ and ⟨jugar⟩), as in Old Leonese cuentar and Asturian cuntar; the Historia troyana of about 1270 has ⟨juegando⟩ and ⟨juegaron⟩.^[2] The difficulty, he notes, is that Catalan has the same ⟨u⟩ although it never diphthongised the vowel.^[2][3]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese jogar, Galician xogar, Asturian xugar, Catalan jugar, French jouer, Italian giocare and Romanian juca; the English word joke is a more distant relative.^[1][6] The noun goes back to *joko- and *iok-o- (“word, utterance”), with cognates in Umbrian iuka (“words, prayers”) and Welsh iaith (“language”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) the verb keeps a sense close to the Latin, “to mock, deceive”: „Si yo non uviás, el moro te jugara mal” “if it had not been for me, the Moor would have played you foul”.^[8][2] The same sense appears in Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas (1254) has iogar for amusing oneself in company.^[9] Autoridades (1726–1739) defined it as amusing oneself with a game, and listed “to romp”, “to mock one another”, “to make light of someone” and, figuratively, “to lose by gambling”.^[10] The Academy's 1884 edition distinguished playing for amusement from playing out of a vicious habit or for money.^[11]

The modern dictionary adds playing sports, the moving of a part of a machine and the use of a weapon in action.^[4] In Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay jugarse el cuero means to risk one's skin, and in Colombia the verb is transitive, “to play a game”.^[12] The Spanish of Louisiana uses it for playing an instrument.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has both jogar and jugar, in the sense “to deceive”.^[2][3]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas has the form iogar.^[9]
• c. 1270 – the Historia troyana has juegando and juegaron.^[2]
• 1335 – the derivative juguete “toy” is first recorded, probably from Occitan joguet.^[3][2]
• 15th century – jugar becomes the general form.^[2]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades defines the verb and its figurative senses;^[10][3] jugarreta is first recorded in 1734.^[10][3]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin iocari.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To play: to do something for fun or to develop one's skills: Los niños juegan en el patio.^[4][1]
2. To romp, frolic.^[4]
3. To play a game with rules, with or without a stake: jugar al parchís.^[4]
4. To play a sport: Juega al baloncesto los sábados.^[4]
5. To gamble compulsively.^[4]
6. Of a player, to make a move when it is one's turn.^[4]
7. To fiddle with something for no purpose: No juegues con el bolígrafo.^[4]
8. To treat something or someone without due respect: No juegues con mis sentimientos.^[4]
9. Of a part of a machine, to move as it is designed to.^[4]
10. (transitive, often pronominal) To risk, stake: Se jugó todo su sueldo..^[1][12]

Word family

• jugada
• jugador
• jugarreta
• jugable
• jugón
• jugársela
• sobrejugar

Related words

• juego
• juguete
• juguetear
• juguetón
• jocoso
• juglar
• Latin iocus

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 h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 534
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. juego
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. jugar
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. jugar
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3602
7. ^ 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. iocus
8. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. jugar
9. ^ 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. jugar
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, 328
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 619
12. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. jugar