lograr

Forms

lograr (first-person singular present logro, first-person singular preterite logré, past participle logrado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish lograr, inherited from Latin lucror (“to make a profit, gain”).^[2][3][1][4] The Latin verb is formed from lucrum (“gain, profit”), which survives separately in logro.^[4][2][5] The learned doublets are lucro and lucrar.^[2][4][1]

According to Corominas, the Latin noun left descendants only in Romanian, Castilian and Portuguese, and in Old Catalan and Old Occitan, and the verb survived in the same languages and in Italian logorare (“to wear out”).^[4] Its kin include Portuguese lograr, Galician lograr, Asturian llograr and Romanian lucra.^[6][7][1] Catalan had the old noun llogre (“gain, especially usurious gain”), but its verb lograr is a Castilianism, as the ⟨l⟩ instead of ⟨ll⟩ shows.^[8]

De Vaan derives the noun from Proto-Italic *luklo-, dissimilated to *lukro-, from Proto-Indo-European *lh₂u-tló- (“seizure, gain”).^[9] Its cognates are Ancient Greek ἀπολαύω (apolaúō, “to enjoy”) and Gothic 𐌻𐌰𐌿𐌽 (laun, “reward”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) the verb means “to enjoy the fruit of something”.^[4][10] Minaya returns from battle with his shield hacked by blows, and the poet says that aquellos que ge los dieran non ge lo avién logrado “those who had dealt them had got no good of it”, for he had killed more than twenty Moors.^[4][11][10] The Latin sense “to make gains” still appears in the ordinances of the Cortes of 1351, which want everyone to logren y vivan por labor de sus manos “earn and live by the work of their hands”.^[4][12]

Semantic evolution

From “to enjoy the fruit of” the verb passed to “to make use of, take advantage of” (lograr la ocasión), a sense still alive in inland Argentina.^[4] Nebrija still gives the old sense (lograr de alguna cosa: Latin potior, fruor), and Percyvall in 1591 translated it as “to win, to gain”.^[4][13] The pronominal lograrse came to mean “to succeed, to reach perfection”, and the participle logrado “successful, well made”.^[4] It is also said of a child or a plant that survives and develops: in 1625 a writer from the Americas says that the children who were born no se lograban.^[14][15]

The modern sense “to obtain, achieve” is absent from Oudin, Percyvall and Covarrubias.^[4] Corominas thinks it was a neologism in the Golden Age, born in the phrase lograr uno sus deseos, first in the second part of the Quijote (1615).^[4][2] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1734) put this sense first, then “to enjoy, possess”, “to make use of” and “to hit the mark” (lograr el tiro).^[16] Domínguez in 1846 noted that the sense “to enjoy” was little used.^[17] In rural Peru the pronominal verb once meant that a woman managed to marry or find a sweetheart.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses it for “to enjoy the fruit of”.^[4][2]
• 13th century – logro translates Latin usura “usury” in a biblical manuscript.^[4]
• 1220–1250 – the derivative logrero “usurer” appears, in Berceo.^[2][4]
• 1351 – the Cortes of Valladolid use it for “to earn”.^[4][12]
• 1537 – the first record from the Americas, in Cartagena.^[14]
• 1591 – Percyvall translates it “to win, to gain”.^[13]
• 1615 – the second part of the Quijote has the modern sense “to obtain”.^[2][4]
• First half of the 17th century – malograrse and malogrado appear.^[2]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as “to obtain what one wants”.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin lucrari “to gain”.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. To achieve, to obtain what one tries for or wants; with an infinitive, to manage to: Después de tres intentos logró subir a la cima.^[3][1]
2. (rare) To enjoy (something).^[3]
3. (pronominal, of a thing) To reach full development or perfection, to turn out well: Con tanta lluvia, las uvas no se lograron.^[3][15]
4. (Peru, rural, obsolete; pronominal) Of a woman, to manage to marry or find a boyfriend.^[18]

Word family

• logro
• logrero
• logrado
• malograr
• malogrado

Related words

• lucro
• lucrar
• lucrativo
• Latin lucrum
• Portuguese lograr

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 (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lograr
3. ^ 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. lograr
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 688
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2062
7. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. llograr
8. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 5, 243
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 Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 328
11. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. lograr
12. ^ a b Cabrera, Ramón (1837), Diccionario de etimologías de la lengua castellana, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta de Marcos Bueno
13. ^ a b Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 164
14. ^ a b 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. lograr
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lograr
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 429
17. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1102
18. ^ 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. lograr
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. 651