llegar

Forms

llegar (first-person singular present llego, first-person singular preterite llegué, past participle llegado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish llegar, inherited from Latin plicō (“to fold”), which Corominas takes for a late back-formation from the classical applicō (“to put against, bring near; to bring a ship to land”).^[2][3] The Academy's dictionary derived the word from the classical verb in 1884, and today derives it from the simple verb, as Corominas does.^[4][5] Wiktionary takes it straight from the classical verb, in its sense “to land, to reach the coast”.^[1]

Corominas explains the sense “to arrive” mainly from the nautical use of the classical verb, “to steer a ship to shore”, generalised to any arrival, as Argentine arribar and Andalusian aportar later did again.^[2] The intransitive use with the modern sense already appears in the 5th-century Peregrinatio Aetheriae, where a Persian army “approached” a city, but the transitive and reflexive uses, “to bring near, to bring to”, are the older ones.^[2] Because the word has so many senses, he thinks it may have more than one starting point, from the general idea “to bring near, to make for”.^[2]

The same Latin verbs gave Portuguese chegar, Galician chegar and Asturian allegar, and, with the sense “to arrive”, the Valencian and older Catalan aplegar and the Campidanese appillai; Romanian pleca means “to leave”, perhaps from striking tents.^[3][2][6][1] The simple Latin verb was itself drawn from compounds such as the one above, complicō and explicō, and goes back to Proto-Indo-European *pleḱ- (“to plait, weave”).^[2][1]

Lanchetas compared the ⟨ll⟩ of this verb beside plegar with lleno beside pleno and llano beside plano.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first trace is the form aplekare in the Glosas Silenses, of the second half of the 10th century, where non aplekare renders the Latin nec ad osculum ecclesiam accedat, “let him not come forward to the kiss”.^[2][3] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) has llegar with the modern sense: the Campeador rode to his lodging, así commo llegó a la puerta, fallóla bien cerrada, “as soon as he reached the door, he found it shut fast”.^[8][2] The Cid also uses it transitively, “to bring to”: si Dios me legare al Cid, “if God brings me to the Cid”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages and still in the Golden Age the verb was often transitive, meaning “to bring, lead” and especially “to bring near, put together”: Juan Ruiz, Juan Manuel and Cervantes use it so, and the reflexive llegarse “to come close” was even commoner.^[2] Alfonso X's prose already has the senses “to arrive”, “to reach one's goal”, “to touch” and, of time, “to come”.^[9]

The Diccionario de Autoridades puts “to arrive at a place” first, then “to bring near”, “to last until a time” and “to reach a mark”.^[10] The Academy's 1817 edition adds “to amount to” and the use with an infinitive, where llegó a oír simply means “heard”.^[11] The 1843 edition lists the transitive senses “to gather” and “to bring near” separately.^[12] Today the DLE labels the sense “to gather” as rare.^[5]

In the Americas the verb has local senses: in Peru it is used for “not to matter to someone”, in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador young people use it for “to please”, and in Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua a medicine “takes effect”.^[13] In Mexico llegarle a uno was recorded for “to die” and, in the slang of the capital, “to stab someone”.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 950–1000 – the Glosas Silenses gloss with non aplekare.^[2][3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses llegar for “to arrive” and “to bring to”.^[8][2]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes is the first record whose surviving copy is of the same time.^[8]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses llegar for reaching a place.^[9]
• c. 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz uses the transitive llegóme a dos senderos, “it brought me to two paths”.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary uses the phrase llegar a la cumbre, “to reach the top”.^[15]
• 1515 – the first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[16]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the verb with Latin pervenire and accedere.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology applicare “to bring near” for the first time.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To arrive, to reach the end of a journey: Llegamos a Sevilla de madrugada.^[5][1]
2. (intransitive) To last until a given time.^[5]
3. (intransitive) To come to someone in order or by turn.^[5]
4. (intransitive) To attain a position, rank or degree: Llegó a coronel antes de los cuarenta.^[5]
5. (intransitive, with a and an infinitive) To go as far as doing something, to manage to do it: Llegó a juntar tres mil discos.^[5][1]
6. (intransitive) To reach, extend as far as: La falda le llega a los tobillos.^[5][1]
7. (intransitive) Of a time or season, to come, begin.^[5][17]
8. (intransitive) To amount to: La factura llegó a trescientos euros.^[5]
9. (intransitive, sports) To reach the finishing line.^[5]
10. (intransitive) Of an amount, to be enough.^[5][1]
11. (transitive) To bring near, put close (arrimar).^[5]
12. (transitive, rare) To gather (allegar).^[5]
13. (pronominal) To come close to someone or something; to go over to a nearby place.^[5][17]
14. (Peru, popular) Not to matter to someone.^[13]

Word family

• llegada
• llegadizo
• allegar
• allegado

Related words

• llegado
• plegar
• aplicar
• Latin applicō
• Portuguese chegar

Usage notes

The interjection ¡hasta ahí podríamos llegar! expresses indignation at a possible abuse.^[5] In Cuba un llega y pon is a shanty quarter, or a place anyone uses as they please.^[5] The Asturian form is also llegar, and Asturian allegar means both “to arrive” and “to allege”.^[18][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 729
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. llegar
4. ^ 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
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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. llegar
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 453
8. ^ 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. llegar
9. ^ 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. llegar
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 422
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 539
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 447
13. ^ 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. llegar
14. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 670
15. ^ 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. llegar
16. ^ 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. llegar
17. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. llegar
18. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. llegar
19. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. allegar