llanto

Forms

llanto m (plural llantos)^[1] The oldest texts have planto, which Berceo also uses and which is still found in Juan de Valdés;^[2] llanto is first in the Calila of 1251.^[2] Planto survives as an old form of Castilian, Riojan and Aragonese.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin planctus (“a striking; beating of the breast, lamentation”); the Old Spanish form was planto.^[2][4][5][1] The Latin noun is formed from plangō (“to strike; to beat one's breast, lament”) with the action-noun suffix -tus.^[6][1]

The same Latin word is Portuguese pranto, Old Galician-Portuguese chanto, Catalan plant, Old Occitan planh, Old French plaint, Italian pianto and Sardinian prantu.^[7][2] Nascentes takes the Portuguese word as semi-learned, with archaic forms in ⟨pl-⟩ and ⟨ch-⟩.^[8] The Portuguese, Catalan and French words soon fell out of use.^[2]

That verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- (“to hit”), with a nasal present *plh₂-n-g-; its cognates include Ancient Greek πλάζω (plázō, “to drive off course”).^[9] De Vaan explains the meaning “mourn” from “hit oneself on the breast”.^[9]

In Castilian the Latin cluster /pl-/ became the palatal /ʎ/, written ⟨ll⟩, and the group /-nkt-/ was simplified to /-nt-/.^[2][3] Corominas notes that the old texts with ⟨pl-⟩ all show Aragonese features, so the scarcity of early records with ⟨ll-⟩ does not mean that the Castilian form is late.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH dates planto to about 1200, in the Libre dels tres reys d'Orient, and to the Vida de Santa María Egipciaca.^[2] The CDH has it in the same years in Almerich's Fazienda de Ultra Mar, in a 13th-century copy, of the Egyptians mourning Jacob: Pasaron dias de so planto “the days of their mourning passed”.^[10] The sense was the loud lamentation for the dead, as in Berceo's monks and people who made muy grande planto at Saint Dominic's death.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In Romance the word moved from “lamentation” to “the act of weeping”, as in piangere “to weep”.^[2] The prose of Alfonso X still uses it for mourning for a misfortune and for a funeral song or lament, the llantos of Jeremiah.^[11] Covarrubias in 1611 explained it by the Latin lamentation with beating of the breast and noted the forms planto and plañir.^[12] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as a shedding of tears usually with laments and sobs, a definition the DLE keeps today.^[13][5]

Corominas finds the word in every period and register, though lloro is now somewhat more popular.^[2] The Academy recorded the phrases anegarse en llanto “to weep floods of tears” and el llanto sobre el difunto “the weeping over the dead man”, said of things that must be done in good time, from 1817.^[14][15] Alemany's dictionary of 1917 added a Cuban sense, a melancholy song.^[16] In Bolivia ¡llanto sobre el difunto! says that something happens at the right moment.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – planto in the Libre dels tres reys d'Orient.^[2]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos has planto for the mourning of the monks.^[10]
• c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio, in a 14th-century copy, has the plural llantos.^[10]
• c. 1250 – llanto in the Poridat de poridades, in a manuscript of the time.^[10]
• 1251 – llanto in the Calila, the DCECH's first record of this form.^[2]
• 1280 – Alfonso X's General estoria calls the lamentations of Jeremiah llantos.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin planctus, lessum and lamentum, and Greek threnos.^[18][19]
• 1570 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico: con gran dolor y llanto.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin planctus.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy records anegarse en llanto and el llanto sobre el difunto.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. planctus”.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. weeping, crying: a flow of tears, often with laments and sobs: El llanto del niño despertó a toda la casa.^[5][1][21]
2. Suffering or sorrow, of which weeping is the sign: Aquella guerra trajo mucho llanto.^[21]

Related words

• plañir
• Latin planctus
• Portuguese pranto
• Italian pianto

Usage notes

Anegarse en llanto (also deshacerse en llanto) means to weep bitterly.^[5][21] The near-synonym lloro belongs to a different Latin verb.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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, 724
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5087
4. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. llanto
5. ^ a b c d 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. llanto
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. planctus
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. planctus
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. pranto
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. llanto
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. llanto
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. 1096
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 421
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 538
15. ^ 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. 657
16. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1053
17. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. llanto
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 374
19. ^ 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. llanto
20. ^ 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. llanto
21. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. llanto