jurar

Forms

jurar (first-person singular present juro, first-person singular preterite juré, past participle jurado)^[1] Old Spanish wrote iurar and yurar, beside jurar; the form aiurar or ajurar is also frequent.^(DEMel|s.v. jurar(se))^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish iurar, inherited from Latin iūrō (“to swear, take an oath”).^[3][4][1] The Latin verb is formed from iūs (“law, right”).^[3][5] Bénaben and the DHLF explain the original sense as “to pronounce the ritual formula” having the force of law.^[6][7]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese jurar, Galician xurar, Asturian xurar, Catalan jurar, Occitan jurar, French jurer, Italian giurare and Romanian jura.^[8][9][1] The French verb is recorded as early as 842, in the Strasbourg Oaths.^[7]

Early inscriptions spell the Latin root with ⟨iour-⟩, and de Vaan takes the third person iouvesat of the Duenos inscription to mean “swears”.^[5][10] He reconstructs Proto-Italic *jowos “oath, law”, with the verb *jowesāje-, and traces the noun to a Proto-Indo-European word for “vital force, eternity”, *h₂oi-u.^[10] Wiktionary gives the root as *h₂yew-.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has the verb in the scene of the chests left with the moneylenders: ca assí·l' dieran la fe e ge lo avién jurado “for so they had given him their word and sworn it to him”.^[11][3] Earlier hits in the CDH, such as iuret in the Fuero de Madrid, are Latin.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In the prose of Alfonso X the verb already meant to swear or promise solemnly, to recognise a prince's sovereignty by oath, to swear obedience to rules, and to bind oneself by oath against someone, that is, to conspire.^[2] Covarrubias recorded the phrase jura y perjura for someone who swears again and again that he did not do something.^[12] Autoridades also recorded the sense “to have the habit of swearing”, and the Academy's 1869 edition the intransitive “to curse”.^[13][14]

The Academy entered the phrase jurársela a alguno “to vow revenge on someone” in 1817 and jurar en falso “to perjure oneself” in 1869.^[15][14] Alemany's 1917 dictionary records the sense of swearing to uphold a constitution, a rule or the duties of an office, which the DLE keeps.^[16][4] In popular Chilean usage the pronominal jurarse means to claim qualities one does not have.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses the verb (in a 14th-century copy).^[11][3]
• c. 1194–1211 – the Liber Regum writes iurar of the nobles who swear loyalty to the king's son.^[11]
• 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España uses it for recognising a prince and for conspiring.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin iuro and deum testor.^[18]
• 1528 – the first record from the Americas, in Santa Marta.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records jura y perjura.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy enters jurársela a alguno.^[15]
• 1869 – the Academy enters jurar en falso and the sense “to curse”.^[14]
• 1917 – Alemany records swearing to uphold a constitution or an office.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To swear: to affirm or deny something calling on God or something held sacred as witness: Te lo juro por mis hijos.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To recognise solemnly, with an oath of loyalty and obedience, the sovereignty of a prince.^[4]
3. (transitive) To swear to obey a country's constitution, the rules of a religious order or the duties of an office: jurar el cargo.^[4][20]
4. (intransitive) To curse, blaspheme.^[4][1]
5. (pronominal, Chile, popular) To claim without grounds that one has some quality.^[17]

Word family

• jura
• jurado
• jurador
• juramento

Related words

• jurídico
• justo
• Latin iūs
• Portuguese jurar

Usage notes

Set phrases: jurar en falso “to swear to what one knows is untrue” and jurársela or jurárselas a alguien “to vow revenge on someone” (colloquial).^[4] In the Canaries country people say jurar for “to pierce, bore through”; the Canarian historical dictionary derives it from Portuguese furar, which makes it a separate word.^[21][22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. jurar
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. jurar
4. ^ 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. jurar
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. iūrō
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. jurar
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. jurer
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3633
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. jurare
10. ^ 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. iūs
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. jurar
12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1027
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 333
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 450
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 511
16. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 991
17. ^ 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. jurar
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 365
19. ^ 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. jurar
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. jurar
21. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. jurar
22. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. jurar