lugar

Forms

lugar m (plural lugares)^[1] The old form was logar, with the spellings locar (933) and logal, lugal in the Libro de Alexandre;^[2][3] lugar appears in a Leonese charter of about 1100 and becomes usual by the end of the Middle Ages.^[2][3] Logar is still the normal form in Berceo and in the Rimado de Palacio, and it appears in letters from Puerto Rico in 1519.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin locālis (“of a place, local”), a derivative of locus (“place”); the Old Spanish form was logar.^[2][3][1] Corominas explains the replacement: the descendant of the simple noun, Old Spanish luego (“place”) (Old Leonese logo in a charter of 965), was confused with the adverb luego, which comes from locō (“in the place”), so that a phrase meaning “in that place” could be taken to mean “at that time”.^[2][3] The second /l/ of the Latin adjective became /r/ by dissimilation, giving locar, and Corominas suggests that the two old words crossed to give *luegar, later reduced to the modern form.^[2][5][6] The DLE simply derives the word from its Old Spanish form.^[7]

The same derivative is Portuguese lugar, Galician lugar and Asturian llugar, and, in the valley of Sobrarbe, Aragonese lluga.^[8][9] Catalan kept the simple word, Catalan lloc, from the Latin noun; it has the derivative only in llogaret “hamlet”, from an old llogar.^[3][10] Medieval Portuguese also used logo as a noun meaning “place”.^[2][11]

The Latin noun had an old form stlocus.^[12][13] It has been derived from *stel- (“to put, place”), but de Vaan finds this hard to justify, since there is no suffix *-oko-, and leaves the origin open.^[12][1] Spanish local is the same Latin adjective taken as a learned word in 1490.^[3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the form locar in a charter of 933.^[2][3] The first literary use is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy), where the two moneylenders want to hide the chests: „en logar las metamos que non sea ventado” “let us put them in a place where it will not be found out”.^[14] The sense is “place, spot”, as in the Auto de los Reyes Magos (c. 1180): „ueremos el logar” “we shall see the place”.^[14]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Lapidario already uses logar for a space, a spot, a town or village, and a passage of an author.^[15] Covarrubias in 1611 notes that it often means a town or village, as in en mi lugar “in the place where I was born”, and gives tener lugar “to have a seat in public acts”, dar lugar “to allow” and no tener lugar “to have no time”.^[16] The Diccionario de Autoridades distinguishes the lugar, smaller than a villa and larger than an aldea.^[17] The first chapter of the Quijote has en un lugar … vivía in this sense.^[18]

The prepositional phrase en lugar de “instead of” was often reduced to en guar de, already in the Corbacho (1438) and still in popular speech, for example in New Mexico.^[2] Tener lugar “to take place” was first rejected as improper and called a Gallicism by Baralt and others;^[19] Corominas dates its admission by the Academy to 1852, while Baralt says the Academy's 1832 edition already allowed it.^[2][19] In New Mexico tomar lugar follows English take place.^[20] In Galicia lugar is a farmstead held on lease.^[7] In the Canaries tener lugar means “to have time”.^[21] Across the Americas a como dé lugar means “at all costs”.^[22]

Timeline

• 933 – the form locar in a charter.^[2][3]
• 965 – the noun logo “place”, from Latin locus, in a Leonese charter.^[2]
• c. 1100 – the form lugar in a Leonese charter.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has logar.^[14][2]
• 1208 – the Cortes de León use logar religioso; it is the first hit known from no later copy.^[14]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses logar for a place, a town and a passage of a book.^[15]
• 1438 – en guar de for en lugar de in the Corbacho.^[2]
• 1519 – first records in the Americas, in Puerto Rico, still as logar.^[4]
• c. 1590 – the compound lugarteniente, adapted from Late Latin locum tenens.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias: lugar as town or village, and the phrases dar lugar and no tener lugar.^[16]
• 1852 – the Academy admits tener lugar “to take place”, according to Corominas.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology “Del lat. locus”;^[23][24] Alemany's dictionary of 1917 derives it from locale.^[23][24]

Meanings

Noun

1. A portion of space: En este armario no hay lugar para más ropa.^[7][1]
2. A place, spot: un lugar tranquilo junto al río.^[7][1]
3. A city, town or village.^[7]
4. A small settlement, larger than an aldea and smaller than a villa.^[7]
5. A passage of a text or an author.^[7]
6. Time, occasion, opportunity.^[7][25]
7. A post, office or rank.^[7]
8. The position of each item in a series: Terminó en segundo lugar.^[7]
9. (Galicia) A farmstead held on lease.^[7]

Word family

• lugareño
• lugarejo
• lugarteniente

Related words

• local
• localidad
• colocar
• dislocar
• luego
• Latin locus
• Portuguese lugar
• Catalan lloc

Usage notes

Phrases include en lugar de “instead of”, dar lugar a “to give rise to”, tener lugar “to take place”, fuera de lugar “out of place” and lugar común “commonplace”.^[7][16] The old form logar is listed separately by the DLE.^[7]

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 i j k l m n o p Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 710
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lugar
4. ^ 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. logar
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. lugar
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 429
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. lugar
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 3925
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2073
10. ^ 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, 234
11. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. lugar
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
14. ^ 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. lugar
15. ^ 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. lugar
16. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1094
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 437
18. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 1163
19. ^ a b Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 411
20. ^ Cobos, Rubén (1983), A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, p. 119
21. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. lugar
22. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. lugar
23. ^ 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
24. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1049
25. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lugar