lluvia

Forms

lluvia f (plural lluvias)^[1] Old Spanish texts write the word lluuia, luuia, luvia, pluuia, pluia and lluuya;^[2][3][4] Berceo has pluvia and pluya, Juan Ruiz luvias.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish lluvia, inherited from Latin pluvia (“rain”).^[5][6][7][1] The Latin noun is the feminine of the adjective pluvius (“rainy”) used on its own, short for “rainy weather”, and belongs to the verb pluō (“to rain”).^{[8][1][9][10]}

Spanish shares the vowel of the Latin noun with Portuguese chuva and Galician chuvia (also choiva), while Catalan pluja, Occitan ploia, French pluie, Italian pioggia and Romanian ploaie go back to a form *plo(v)ia with the vowel of the verb plovere.^[5][11] Corominas rules out such a base for Castilian, since its outcome there would have been like that of novia.^[5] The REW explains the Romance forms as a regular *pluia remade under the influence of that verb, and calls their development not fully clear.^[11]

De Vaan derives the verb from Proto-Italic *plow-e/o- (“to rain”) and Proto-Indo-European *pleu- (“to swim, float”), the root of Ancient Greek πλέω (pléō, “to sail, swim”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the spelling pluvia in an Aragonese document of 1148;^[5] Berceo has the word, and the form with ll- appears in Juan Manuel and Juan Ruiz.^[5] The CDH's earliest hit is the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (c. 1215, in a 14th-century copy), where the saint fears neither the deep waves nor „las lluvias con los vientos grandes que trayen las tempestades” “the rains with the great winds that bring the storms”.^[4] The earliest hit without a later copy, the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), wants roof tiles baked so that „ni yelo, ni lluuia non las desfaga” “neither frost nor rain may break them up”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of the waters de la lluuia that gather in rainy years, the sense the word has kept.^[12] The Diccionario de Autoridades added a transferred sense, a rapid and unbroken succession of something, as in lluvia de pedradas “a hail of stones”; the Academy kept it as copia ó muchedumbre “abundance or multitude” through the 19th century.^[13][14][15] From 1899 the first sense is the act of raining, then the water that falls.^[16] Fifteenth-century texts also have lluvia for a flow of blood, which DICCA-XV derives from Latin fluvia;^[17] Nebrija gives lluvia sangre as profluvium sanguinis.^[17]

In Argentina and Uruguay lluvia is a shower for washing, and the shower head.^[7][18] In Puerto Rico it names a shrub with blue flowers, Duranta plumieri.^[18][19] The nautical word chubasco “squall”, in the Academy's dictionary from 1817, was taken from Portuguese chuvasco, a derivative of chuva “rain”.^[5][6]

Timeline

• 1148 – the spelling pluvia in an Aragonese document.^[5]
• c. 1215 – lluvias in the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (in a 14th-century copy).^[4]
• 1218–c. 1250 – lluuia in the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes.^[4]
• 1220–1250 – Corominas's date for the word in his short dictionary.^[6]
• c. 1230 – Berceo writes pluya in the Vida de San Millán.^[4]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of rainwater.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin pluvia and imber.^[17]
• 1535 – the first record in the Americas, in Mexico.^[20]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades adds the sense “hail, succession” (lluvia de dardos y piedras).^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy records chubasco as a seamen's word.^[5]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin pluvia.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. rain: the water that falls from the clouds; also the act of raining.^[7][1]
2. (figurative) A great quantity of things coming at once: Le cayó encima una lluvia de reproches.^[7][21]
3. (Argentina, Uruguay) A shower for washing.^[7][18]
4. (Puerto Rico) A shrub with blue flowers and yellow drupes, Duranta plumieri.^[18][19]

Word family

• lluvioso
• agualluvias
• lluvia ácida
• lluvia de estrellas

Related words

• llovedizo
• llover
• pluvial
• pluvioso
• chubasco
• Latin pluvia
• Portuguese chuva

Usage notes

Set phrases include lluvia ácida “acid rain” and lluvia de estrellas “meteor shower”.^[7] Spain also has lluvia meona, a fine persistent drizzle.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. lluvia
3. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 278
4. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. lluvia
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 733
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. llover
7. ^ a b c d e f 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. lluvia
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. lluvia
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 432
10. ^ 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. pluō
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. pluvia
12. ^ 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. lluvia
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 426
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 539
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. 658
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 616
17. ^ a b c 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. lluvia
18. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. lluvia
19. ^ 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. lluvia
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. lluvia
21. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lluvia