lado

Forms

lado m (plural lados)^[1] Archaic documents from Burgos (1225, 1227) still have the old singular lados in the phrase al lados “next to”.^[2] The Libro de Alexandre has the Leonese form llado.^[2][3] Asturian today says llau.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish lado, inherited from Latin latus (“side, flank”).^[2][4][5][1] Because the Latin word was a neuter of the third declension, its accusative was the same as its nominative, and the regular Spanish outcome would have been a singular lados; this form occurs in a few archaic documents, in the phrase al lados (“next to”), but a new singular was soon drawn from it by analogy, and that is the form of the oldest literary examples.^[2] Nascentes and Lanchetas instead start from a second-declension Vulgar Latin *latum.^[6][7]

The same Latin word is Portuguese lado, Galician lado, Asturian llau, Italian lato and Old French lez.^[8][9][1] The Old French word survives as a preposition meaning “near” in French place names such as ⟨Plessis-lez-Tours⟩.^[9][10] The word was common to all the medieval Romance languages, but Gallo-Romance and Catalan later replaced it with descendants of Vulgar Latin *costatum.^[2]

The Latin noun was originally an s-stem built on a root *lat-, for which de Vaan finds no good etymology.^[11] A link with Old Irish and Welsh words for “side” is attractive in meaning but hard to reconcile in form; another possibility is a derivation from lateō (“to be hidden”), if the word first named the hidden part of the body.^[11] The adjective lātus (“broad”) has a separate origin.^[11][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word from Berceo and a charter of 1219.^[2][4] The CDH has an earlier example in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), in God's instructions for the ark: „la puerta faras en el lado del archa” “you shall make the door in the side of the ark”.^[12] In Berceo's Sacrificio de la misa the word names the side of Christ's body pierced by the lance: „en el diestro lado fo el bon fontanar” “in the right side was the good fountain”.^[12][7]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already uses it for the side of the body, for the right or left part of a thing, for one of two faces of an object and, in geometry, for a side of a figure.^[13] Covarrubias in 1611 records ir lado a lado con otro “to walk beside someone as his equal”, hazerse a un lado “to step aside” and andar de lado “to walk crookedly”.^[14] Autoridades (1734) defines it as the part of the body from the armpit to the hip, and by extension as a person who assists or keeps company with another (tener buenos lados).^[15]

The Academy's 1817 edition adds the mat set against the stakes of a cart, and figurative “protector, adviser”; its 1843 edition adds the way or course one takes and the geometrical senses, and the 1869 edition the two faces of a coin or cloth, “place” and “aspect, point of view”.^[16][17][18] Today the DLE marks “favour, protection” and its plural “protectors” as obsolete.^[5]

In Latin America the phrase del otro lado is a euphemism for “homosexual” in many countries, and in Mexico el otro lado is the United States.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy) speaks of the side of the ark.^[12]
• 1219 – first dated record, in a charter.^[2][4]
• 1225 – a Burgos document still has the old form in al lados “next to”.^[2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for the side of a stone and of the body.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin latus for lado diestro o siniestro.^[20]
• 1532 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records ir lado a lado and hazerse a un lado.^[14]
• 1734 – Autoridades gives the senses “side of the body” and “companion”.^[15]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the geometrical sense.^[17]
• 1869 – the Academy adds the faces of a coin and “aspect”.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. Each of the parts that bound a whole: El pueblo estaba rodeado por todos lados.^[5][22]
2. The side of a person's or animal's body, between the shoulder and the hip; costado.^[5][22]
3. Each of the two faces of a cloth, a coin or anything else that has two.^[5][23]
4. A place, a spot: Siéntate en otro lado, que aquí molestas.^[5]
5. A line of descent: Es vasco por el lado del padre.^[5]
6. Each of the aspects from which someone or something can be considered.^[5][23]
7. A mat set against the stakes along the sides of a cart so that the load does not fall out.^[5]
8. (geometry) Each of the two lines forming an angle; each line bounding a polygon; an edge or a face of a polyhedron; a generatrix of the lateral surface of a cone or cylinder.^[5]
9. (obsolete) Favour, protection; in the plural, the people who favour, advise or protect someone.^[5]
10. (Mexico) el otro lado: the United States.^[19]
11. al lado: nearby; right next to: Vive aquí al lado.^[5]

Word family

• ladera
• ladear
• ladeo

Related words

• Latin latus
• Portuguese lado

Usage notes

Old Spanish also had an adjective lado, lada “broad”, from Latin lātus, still used in the 13th century and surviving in the diminutive ladilla “crab louse”, named for its flat shape.^[24][2] Old Galician-Portuguese had the same adjective.^[4][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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, 554
3. ^ a b Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. llau
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lado
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. lado
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. lado
7. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 426
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 3793
9. ^ a b c d Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. lado
11. ^ 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
12. ^ 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. lado
13. ^ 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. lado
14. ^ 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. 1059
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 347
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 514
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 426
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 453
19. ^ 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. lado
20. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. lado
21. ^ 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. lado
22. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lado
23. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. lado
24. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 354