lago

Forms

lago m (plural lagos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish lago, inherited from Latin lacus (“basin, tank; pond, lake”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin word also meant any reservoir of liquid, and in that sense it gave lagar “wine press”, found in a Leonese Latin document of 1098, and Basque lako “wine press”.^[2][3]

The word is common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese lago, Galician lago, Asturian llago, Catalan llac, Occitan lac, Italian lago and Romanian lac.^[2][5][6] Mozarabic had laco, and a Navarrese text of 1205–1222 has the same form.^[5][7] Old French lai was replaced by the learned French lac.^[8]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *laku- and Proto-Indo-European *lok-u- (“lake”), with cognates in Old Irish loch, Ancient Greek λάκκος (lákkos, “pond, cistern”) and Old English lagu.^[9][1] Its vowel /a/ may come from unrounding after a velarised /l/;^[9][1] Wiktionary notes that this word may be the only evidence for such a change.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas has the first record in a charter of 1213 and in Berceo.^[2] The earliest CDH hit, Herman el Alemán's translation of the Psalter (c. 1240–1272), keeps the biblical sense “pit”: non semeje yo a los que descenden al lago, “let me not be like those who go down into the pit”.^[10] The lake proper is in Alfonso X's Estoria de España (1270–1284), which describes un lago muy grand from which a river rises.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 set lago apart from laguna: a lake is fed by its own springs and never dries up, while a lagoon collects water running down from the hills and may dry out in summer; he named the navigable lakes of Garda and Como.^[12] The Diccionario de Autoridades also used the word for any pool of spilt liquid, quoting the Quijote (el vino tinto tiene hecho un lago el aposento, “the red wine has made a lake of the room”), and recorded lago de leones, the underground den where lions were kept.^[13] The Academy's 1884 definition, a great permanent mass of water in a hollow of the ground, with or without an outlet to the sea, is close to the DLE's.^[14][4]

In the Americas the word is recorded from 1548 in Santo Domingo; a Mexican text of 1571 glosses lago de agua with the Nahuatl vey atezcatl.^[15] In La Rioja lago also means a wine press.^[5]

Timeline

• 1098 – Latin lacare, the ancestor of lagar, in a Leonese document.^[2]
• 1213 – first record of lago, in a charter.^[2][3]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo uses the word.^[2]
• c. 1240–1272 – Herman el Alemán's Psalter uses it for a pit.^[10]
• 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España uses it for a large lake.^[11]
• 1548 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias distinguishes lago from laguna.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology and the modern definition.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. lake: a large, permanent body of water lying in a hollow of the ground: Paseamos en barca por el lago.^[4][1][16]

Related words

• laguna
• lacustre
• lagar
• Latin lacus
• Portuguese lago

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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, 558
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lago
4. ^ a b c 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. lago
5. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. lacus
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. lago
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. lago
11. ^ 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. lago
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. 1061
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 351
14. ^ 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. 626
15. ^ 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. lago
16. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lago