loar

Forms

loar (first-person singular present loo, first-person singular preterite loé, past participle loado)^[1] Beside loar, Old Spanish used the latinising laudar (in the Cid and Berceo) and lodar.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin laudāre (“to praise”).^[5][6][1][7] Corominas doubts that it is native: the usual word was alabar, and the reliable texts of the Cid and of Berceo have the Latin-looking Old Spanish laudar, so this verb may have been taken in the Middle Ages from Old French loer or Old Catalan loar, perhaps as a word of churchmen of the Cluniac movement.^[2] The CDH records it earlier than Corominas, in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar and the Razón de amor.^[8]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese louvar (with older loar), Galician loar, Asturian lloar, Catalan lloar, French louer, Italian lodare and Romanian lăuda.^[9][1][10] The learned form of the Latin word is laudar, used of an arbitrator's award.^[2][1] The Latin verb is formed from laus (“praise”), whose own origin is unclear.^[11][1][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest record is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy): que yo loar me pueda de ti en my veiez assy cuemo me loé en my iuventud “so that I may boast of you in my old age as I did in my youth”.^[8] Corominas's first record is the Setenario of about 1250.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Loar was never a very common word, but it belonged to elevated language; in the 16th century Juan de Valdés called it tolerable for alabar.^[2] After the Golden Age it lived on in writing and grew rarer.^[2] It is now formal or literary.^[13][14] The Academy recorded from 1817 an old sense, “to approve, accept as good”, which the DLE now marks as disused.^[15][5] Its derivatives include loa, loable and loor.^[6]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses the form laudar.^[2][6]
• c. 1200 – loar in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[8]
• c. 1215 – the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca has yo a Tú loo e a Tú adoro “I praise you and adore you”.^[8]
• c. 1250 – the Setenario, Corominas's first record.^[2][6]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives loar o alabar with Latin laudo and probo.^[16]
• 1525 – first record from the Americas, at Nombre de Dios.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as the same as alabar.^[18]
• 1817 – the Academy records the old sense “to approve”.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology Latin laudare.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive; formal) To praise or extol: Todos loaron el valor de los bomberos.^[5][1][13]
2. (transitive; obsolete) To approve, accept as good.^[5]

Word family

• loa
• loable
• loor
• loador
• desloar

Related words

• laudar
• laudable
• laudatorio
• Latin laudō

Usage notes

In Salamanca a separate loar means to chew bread to make paste;^[20][21] García de Diego derives it from Vulgar Latin *glutare (“to glue”).^[20][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 674
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 275
4. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 444
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. loar
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. loar
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 3795
8. ^ 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. loar
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2070
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
13. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. loar
14. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. loar
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 533
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 372
17. ^ 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. loar
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 426
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 650
20. ^ a b Lamano y Beneite, José de (1915), El dialecto vulgar salmantino, Salamanca: Tipografía Popular, p. 516
21. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 3107