levantar

Forms

levantar (first-person singular present levanto, first-person singular preterite levanté, past participle levantado)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Old Spanish levante (“lifting, rising”), the old present participle of levar (“to lift; to carry”), according to the DLE and Moliner.^[2][3] That verb is levō (“to lighten, relieve, lift up”), and modern llevar is the same verb.^[4][1][5] Corominas calls the formation one shared with Portuguese levantar, found elsewhere only in Romansh.^[4] Cunha and Nascentes derive the Portuguese verb from *levantāre, made on the participle levāns (“lifting”), and Wiktionary allows either explanation.^[6][7][1] The Academy derived it from the Latin participle from 1884 to 1917.^[8][9]

The Latin verb is derived from levis (“light in weight”), which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₁legʷʰ-u- (“light”).^[10] The Asturian form is llevantar.^[11][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to about 950, in the Glosas Emilianenses, and finds the word in general use from the Cantar de mio Cid on.^[4][12] In the Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), at sunrise En Castejón todos se levantavan “in Castejón everyone was getting up”, and they opened the gates to go out to their fields.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The Liber Regum (c. 1194–1211) already uses it for setting up a king, leuanto rei.^[13] Berceo has it for raising, for intoning a chant aloud and for spreading news.^[14] In the prose of Alfonso X it also means “to set upright”, “to detach” and “to build”.^[15] Covarrubias (1611) lists lifting a weight, putting up buildings, getting up, flushing game, bearing false witness (levantar falso testimonio), raising troops and getting above oneself.^[16] In the 16th century Juan de Valdés preferred llevar for “to carry” partly because levar also meant “to lift”.^[4]

In the Americas it means “to pick up, win over” someone, usually with a sexual aim, in most countries.^[17] In Puerto Rico and the Canaries it can mean “to steal” or “to take for oneself”, and in the Dominican Republic also “to answer the telephone” and “to bring up a child”.^[18][19][20] The Chilean Román accepted the sense “to impute falsely” but rejected “to make off with”.^[21]

Timeline

• c. 950 – first record, in the Glosas Emilianenses.^[4][12]
• c. 1140 – se levantavan “they got up” in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[13]
• c. 1194–1211 – leuanto rei “he set up as king” in the Liber Regum.^[13]
• 1277 – leuantada “erected” in an astronomical treatise of Alfonso X's court.^[15]
• 1490 – the derivative levantamiento.^[12]
• 1534 – first record in the Americas, at Panama.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias lists its senses and derives it from Latin levo.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from the Latin participle levans.^[8]

Meanings

Verb

1. To lift, raise: move something upwards; also reflexive: Levantó la caja del suelo.^[2][1]
2. To put something in a higher place than before.^[2]
3. To set upright something or someone lying or leaning;^[1] (reflexive) to stand up: Se levantó de la silla.^[2][3]
4. (reflexive) To get up, get out of bed: Me levanto a las siete.^[1][3]
5. To detach something from what it rests on or sticks to.^[2]
6. To raise the eyes or the gaze.^[2]
7. To take up or remove something from where it is, such as a tent or tablecloth.^[2]
8. To build, erect: Levantaron un puente nuevo.^[2][1]
9. To draw up the plan of a town or building.^[2][1]
10. (card games) To cut the deck; to play a higher card on the one led.^[2][3]
11. (hunting) To flush game.^[2][3]
12. To lift a ban, punishment or siege.^[3][1]
13. To recruit troops.^[3][16]
14. (reflexive) To rise up, rebel, often levantarse en armas.^[3]
15. To cause or stir up something such as a commotion or a slander;^[16] levantar falso testimonio, to bear false witness.^[3][16]
16. (Latin America, colloquial) To pick up someone, win them over romantically or sexually.^[17][20]
17. (Puerto Rico, Canaries, colloquial) To steal, make off with.^[18][19]

Word family

• levantamiento
• levantado
• levantador
• alevantar

Related words

• levante
• llevar
• relevante
• elevar
• Latin levō
• Portuguese levantar

Usage notes

The variant alevantar is recorded beside it in Old Spanish.^[4][23] levante “east”, recorded in 1495, is the place where the sun rises.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. levantar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. levantar
4. ^ 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, 636
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. levare
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2028
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. levantar
8. ^ 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. 641
9. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1027
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. llevantar
12. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. levar
13. ^ 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. levantar
14. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 437
15. ^ 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. levantar
16. ^ a b c d e Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1083
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. levantar
18. ^ a b Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. levantar
19. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. levantar
20. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. levantar
21. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 297
22. ^ 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. levantar
23. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. levantar