luchar

Forms

luchar (first-person singular present lucho, first-person singular preterite luché, past participle luchado)^[1] Old Spanish texts also have lucten, luyto and aluchar.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin luctor (“to wrestle, struggle”), whose active form luctāre was the Old Latin one.^[3][4][5][6] The verb has survived in all the Romance languages: Portuguese lutar, once luitar, Galician loitar, Asturian lluchar, Aragonese luitar, Catalan lluitar, Occitan luchar, French lutter, Italian lottare and Romanian lupta.^[3][7][1] Corominas notes that the length of the Latin ⟨u⟩ is unknown: Italian points to a short vowel, most other languages rather to a long one, and Old Occitan had both lochar and luchar.^[3]

The Latin verb was first a word of the wrestling school.^[8][9] De Vaan explains it as a frequentative built on a past participle Proto-Italic *lukto- “bent”, from Proto-Indo-European *lug-to-, and compares Ancient Greek λύγος (lúgos, “withy, twigs”) and Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌻𐌿𐌺𐌰𐌽 (galūkan, “to shut”).^[6] The OLD compares λυγίζω (lugízō, “to bend, especially in wrestling”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), in the story of Jacob: e lucho un baron con el fasta la mannana “and a man wrestled with him until morning”.^[10][2] Corominas and the Breve diccionario date it from Berceo, whose Vida de San Millán has two men wrestle for a lodging.^[3][4][10] In the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250) two warriors començaron entrambos a firmes a luchar.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Corominas notes that the verb has always been popular in the sense of two people fighting body to body, while its other senses are more literary.^[3] In Alfonso X's prose it already means to fight or combat in general.^[11] Nebrija (1495) gave Latin luctor, and Percyvall (1591) English “to wrestle”.^[12][13] Autoridades (1734) defined it as two people grappling until one falls to the ground, and figuratively as disputing about something.^[14] The Academy's 1869 edition added the senses “to fight, combat”.^[15]

In Cuba luchar also means to carry on some illicit activity for gain.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar uses it for Jacob's wrestling.^[10]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo has luchar and the noun lucha.^[3][4]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's astrological prose uses it for fighting.^[11]
• 1490 – first record of luchador, in Palencia.^[4][3]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[17]
• 1734 – Autoridades derives it from Latin luctari.^[14]
• 1846 – Domínguez notes that the Academy wrongly calls the verb transitive.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of two people: to wrestle, fight hand to hand: Los dos chicos luchaban en el suelo.^[5][1]
2. To fight, combat.^[5][1]
3. To struggle, strive, make one's way in life: Luchó toda su vida por sacar adelante a su familia.^[5][1]

Word family

• luchador
• reluchar

Related words

• lucha
• Latin luctor
• Portuguese lutar
• Catalan lluitar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. luchar
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 706
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. luchar
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. luchar
6. ^ 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
7. ^ 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, 299
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ 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. luchar
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. luchar
12. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 373
13. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 165
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 434
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 473
16. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. luchar
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. luchar
18. ^ 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, 1108