lucir

Forms

lucir (first-person singular present luzco, first-person singular preterite lucí, past participle lucido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lūceō (“to shine”).^[2][3][4][1] Wiktionary and the REW place the Spanish verb under a Vulgar Latin form with the ending of the fourth conjugation, *lūcīre.^[1][5]

The same verb is Portuguese luzir, Galician lucir, Asturian llucir, Catalan lluir, Occitan lusir, French luire, Italian lucere and Romanian luci.^[6][2][5] In French the regular outcome of the Latin verb, luisir, gave way early to the modern verb, which comes from a variant with a short ⟨e⟩.^[7]

The Latin verb is derived from lūx (“light”).^[2][8] De Vaan traces the family to Proto-Indo-European *leuk- (“light”), the causative *louk-eie- (“to make light”) and a stative “to be light”, with cognates in Hittite, Sanskrit and Avestan.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel's first record is the imperfect luzia in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (1200–1250).^[9] Corominas dates the verb from the beginnings of the language, with Berceo, and the BDELC from 1220–1250.^[2][3] The sense was “to shine”: Alfonso X's Lapidario says of a stone that it shines where it is broken (luze ya quanto en la quebrantadura).^[10]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used luciente in the sense “beautiful” (Berceo) and the noun lucencia.^[2] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1726) gave three senses: to shine, to give light to something, and, figuratively, to stand out or excel.^[11] The Academy's 1884 edition added the sense of effort that bears fruit (le luce lo que gana), the plasterer's sense now usually expressed by enlucir, and the pronominal lucirse “to dress up” and “to come off well”.^[12] In Soria the verb means “to whitewash”.^[6]

Moliner notes that lucirse is often ironic, said of someone who has made a poor show, and that the transitive verb means showing off something one is proud of.^[13][4] In Latin America lucir also means “to look, appear”, and in Cuba and the Dominican Republic “to believe, suspect”.^[1][14]

Timeline

• 1200–1250 – luzia in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[9]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo uses the verb and its participle luciente “beautiful”.^[2][3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses luze of a shining stone.^[10]
• c. 1300 – the derivative traslucir appears in the Libro del caballero Zifar.^[2]
• 1495 – Nebrija records lucimiento, deslucir and enlucir.^[2][3]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades adds the figurative sense “to excel”.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin lucere and the sense of dressing up.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To shine or glow.^[4][1]
2. (intransitive, also pronominal) To stand out or excel.^[4]
3. (intransitive) Of work: to show its results: Tanto esfuerzo no le luce.^[4]
4. (transitive) To light up, illuminate.^[4][13]
5. (transitive) To sport or show off something one is wearing: Lucía un sombrero nuevo.^[4][1]
6. (transitive) To display one's progress, wealth or authority.^[4][1]
7. (transitive) To plaster a wall; enlucir.^[4][13]
8. (pronominal) To dress up with care.^[4][1]
9. (pronominal, often ironic) To come off well in an undertaking.^[4][13]
10. (Latin America) To look, seem.^[1][14]

Word family

• deslucir
• enlucir
• relucir
• traslucir
• lucimiento
• luciente
• lucido

Related words

• lúcido
• lucidor
• lucio
• luz
• reluciente
• Latin lūceō
• Portuguese luzir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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, 718
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. luz
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. lucir
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. lūcēre
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 3954
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. luire
8. ^ 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. lūx
9. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. lucir
10. ^ 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. lucir
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 435
12. ^ 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. 653
13. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lucir
14. ^ 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. lucir