ligar

Forms

ligar (first-person singular present ligo, first-person singular preterite ligué, past participle ligado)^[1] In the 13th century the inherited form legar was the usual one, in Berceo, the Libro de Alexandre and the fueros of Alcalá and Plasencia.^[2] Legar still means “to tie sheep for shearing” in Cespedosa de Tormes.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ligāre (“to tie, bind”), in a semi-learned form that kept the Latin /i/.^[2][3][4][1] The popular outcome was Old Spanish legar, but the form with ⟨i⟩, shared with Portuguese ligar and Catalan lligar, soon prevailed.^[2][1] A third form, liar, is not recorded before Cervantes and Covarrubias.^[2] Corominas takes it from French lier, perhaps as a nautical term, and Bénaben speaks of French influence.^[2][5]

The same Latin verb is Italian legare, Occitan ligar, Romanian lega and Old Galician-Portuguese legar, as well as the French verb.^[6][1][2] In Catalan, Coromines says, it first gave liar (c. 1200), which was remade as the present form under the influence of Latin.^[7]

The Latin verb is first found as a simple verb in Catullus, after the compounds alligo, obligo and religo.^[8] De Vaan reconstructs a root Proto-Indo-European *lig- (“to tie”) and sees in the Latin verb a factitive formation, with no certain cognate outside Latin except perhaps Albanian lidh (“to tie”).^[8] Wiktionary gives the root as *leyǵ- (“to bind”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

La fazienda de Ultra Mar (1200–1250 for the DEMel, c. 1200 for the CDH, in a 13th-century copy) says that Christ gave Saint Peter the power de lygar e de solver “to bind and to loose” in heaven and on earth.^[9][10] The Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250) has a chapter on the woman who ligare omnes o bestias “binds men or beasts”.^[9] Corominas dates the word from the Calila of 1251, where the embryo está ligado de su onbligo fasta el onbligo de su madre “is tied from its navel to its mother's navel”.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

In the prose of Alfonso X ligar meant to tie, to join, to make a person impotent by a spell, and to bind by an obligation, as an excommunication does.^[11] Covarrubias in 1611 gave “to tie” and the spell that makes a man impotent.^[12] Autoridades added the alloying of base metals with gold or silver and the figurative “to unite”.^[13] The Academy's 1869 edition still listed the old sense “to bind a book”.^[14]

The colloquial sense “to start a casual love affair, to pick someone up” is the best known today.^[4][1] An Argentine dictionary of 1910 already records ligar for a young man and woman who meet or talk with mutual affection.^[15] In the games of chance of Argentina, Uruguay, Cuba and Venezuela it means to get good cards or win a prize.^[16] Portuguese borrowed this sense “to be lucky” from the Spanish of the Río de la Plata.^[17]

Timeline

• 1200–1250 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar has lygar and ligar, “to bind”.^[10][9]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita has a chapter on the woman who “binds men or beasts”.^[9]
• 1251 – the Calila, the first record for Corominas.^[2][3]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz writes ligado.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records ligar con hechizos, “to bind with spells”.^[2]
• 1605 – the variant liar appears in the Quijote.^[2][3]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as “to tie”, “to alloy metals” and “to unite”.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy gives an etymology for the first time, from Latin ligare.^[18]
• 1910 – Garzón records the Argentine sense of courting.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To tie or bind; atar.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To alloy (alear) metals; to mix another metal with gold or silver in minting coins or making jewellery.^[4]
3. (transitive, also reflexive) To mix ingredients until they form a smooth mass, as in a sauce: La mayonesa no ha ligado.^[4]
4. (transitive) To link, join or unite.^[4][1]
5. (transitive, also reflexive) To bind by an obligation; to win someone's goodwill.^[4]
6. (transitive, bullfighting) To link passes with no apparent break.^[4]
7. (transitive, Argentina, Cuba, Uruguay, Venezuela) In games of chance, to win or get good cards.^[4][16]
8. (intransitive, colloquial) To start a casual love affair; to flirt, pick someone up: Salió el sábado a ver si ligaba.^[4][1]
9. (reflexive) To ally oneself; aliarse.^[4]
10. (obsolete) To make a man impotent by a spell.^[4][12]

Word family

• ligadura
• ligazón
• desligar
• liga
• ligamiento
• ligón

Related words

• liar
• ligación
• ligamento
• lío
• religar
• obligar
• legajo
• Latin ligo
• Portuguese ligar
• Catalan lligar

Usage notes

Ligarse las trompas is “to have one's tubes tied”.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 647
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ligar
4. ^ 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. ligar
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. ligar
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5034
7. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 5, 206
8. ^ 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. ligō
9. ^ 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. ligar
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. ligar
11. ^ 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. ligar
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. 1086
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 404
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 468
15. ^ a b Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 279
16. ^ 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. ligar
17. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ligar
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 645