llevar

Forms

llevar (first-person singular present llevo, first-person singular preterite llevé, past participle llevado)^[1] Until the end of the Middle Ages the infinitive was levar, with the present lieva; the form llevar is general from Nebrija and the 16th century on.^[2][3] Old Spanish texts show leuar, levar, lieuen, lieua and lleuará among other spellings.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish levar, inherited from Latin levāre (“to lighten, relieve; to raise”).^[2][3][5][1] The initial /ʎ/ arose in the forms stressed on the root, such as lieva from levat, where the stressed short /e/ became the diphthong /je/; this form then became lleva, and the ⟨ll⟩ spread to the whole verb.^[2][1][6] Corominas rejects Menéndez Pidal's idea that this ⟨ll⟩ has anything to do with the spontaneous change of initial /l/ to /ʎ/, which he finds only in Catalan and Asturian.^[2]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese levar, Galician levar, Asturian llevar, Aragonese levar, Catalan llevar, French lever and Italian levare.^[7][1][8] Its senses differ by region: Italian, Gallo-Romance and Catalan have “to raise”.^[2] Catalan, Sardinian, southern Italy and Romanian have “to take away”, from the Latin sense “to free of a burden”, which also led to “to carry, take along” in Spanish and Portuguese.^[2]

The Latin verb is formed from levis (“light in weight”), which de Vaan derives from Proto-Indo-European *h₁legʷʰ-u- (“light”).^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to the earliest Spanish texts, the Glosas Emilianenses and Silenses, and Corominas's short dictionary gives about 950.^[2][3] The earliest hit in the CDH is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where the Cid's men plan to move chests at night: de noche lo lieven, que non lo vean cristianos “let them carry it by night, so that no Christians see it”.^[10] In the oldest language the Latin sense “to raise” is frequent, as in the Cid, and so is “to take away”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already uses the verb for carrying a thing from one place to another, for charging a price or a due, for a tree bearing fruit and for putting up with something.^[11] The Diccionario de Autoridades of 1734 gives “to transport”, “to collect a payment” and “to produce”, the order the Academy still follows.^[12][5] The 1884 edition was the first to give the etymology, from Latin levare.^[13]

The modern verb has many further uses: to wear clothes, to have or contain, to lead somewhere (of a road), to drive a vehicle and, with an expression of time, to have spent that time somewhere or doing something.^[5][1] In Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador and Ecuador llevarse with someone means to be on familiar terms, and in Argentina a pupil “takes” a subject he has failed and must resit.^[14] Baralt in 1855 condemned as Gallicisms several uses copied from French mener, such as llevar una conducta “to lead a life”.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 950 – first record, in the Glosas Emilianenses and Silenses, as levar.^[2][3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has the present lieven and the sense “to raise”.^[10][2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses lieva for carrying and levará for a tree bearing fruit.^[11]
• 1438 – the present lieva still occurs in popular dialogue in the Corbacho, and in a play of about 1520.^[2]
• 1495 – Nebrija has only the modern form llevar.^[2]
• 1527 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[16]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the verb as “to transport”.^[12]
• 1855 – Baralt lists uses of llevar that he considers Gallicisms.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology for the first time.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. To take or carry something or someone from one place to another, away from the speaker: Mañana te llevo los papeles a la oficina.^[5][1]
2. To charge or collect a price or a fee.^[5]
3. Of land or a plant: to bear fruit.^[5]
4. To cut off or tear away violently.^[5]
5. To tolerate, to bear with patience.^[5]
6. To lead, guide or direct; of a road, to lead to a place.^[5][1]
7. To have or contain, to be provided with; to wear clothes.^[5][1]
8. To drive a vehicle or ride a horse.^[5]
9. With an expression of time: to have spent that time somewhere or doing something: Llevo dos horas esperando.^[1]
10. (reciprocal) To get on (well or badly) with someone;^[1][14] (Mexico, Central America, Ecuador) to be on familiar terms.^[1][14]

Word family

• llevadero
• conllevar
• sobrellevar

Related words

• levadura
• levantar
• liviano
• relevar
• levar
• leve
• Latin levō

Usage notes

Set phrases include llevar adelante “to carry on with something” and llevar las de ganar “to have every chance of winning”.^[5] In Chile llevarse with a gerund (se lleva paseando) is used for spending one's time doing something, a use Román criticised because it leaves out the expression of time.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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, 731
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. llevar
4. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. llevar
5. ^ 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. llevar
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. llevar
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 3844
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2029
9. ^ 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. levis
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. llevar
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. llevar
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 424
13. ^ 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. 658
14. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. llevar
15. ^ a b Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 413
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. levar
17. ^ 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. 370