mamar

Forms

mamar (first-person singular present mamo, first-person singular preterite mamé, past participle mamado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mammāre (“to suckle”), with the same form in Old Spanish.^[2][3][4][1] Gómez de Silva calls the Latin verb Late Latin.^[5] The Latin verb is formed from mamma (“breast”).^[1][5] The same verb is Portuguese mamar, Galician mamar, Catalan mamar and Italian mammare.^[6][7]

The Latin noun meant both breast or udder and mother.^[8][9] De Vaan calls it a nursery word, a reduplicated labial nasal with a vowel, and reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *mama; the same kind of word is Ancient Greek μάμμη (mámmē, “mother”) and Lithuanian mamà.^[8] Wiktionary leaves open whether Latin made it up itself or took it from Greek.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is Berceo.^[2] The Libro de Alexandre (c. 1240–1250) tells that Alexander as a baby nunca quiso mamar lech de muger rafez “would never suck the milk of a low-born woman”, and Berceo's Milagros speaks of the Virgin de cuya lech quiso con su boca mamar, of Christ who chose to suck her milk.^[10] The Old Spanish Calila e Dimna (1251) and Alfonso X's Setenario use it of the infant at the breast.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias (1611) defines it as the child's drawing the mother's milk with lips and tongue, common to people and animals.^[11] Autoridades (1734) adds the extended sense “to eat, gulp down”.^[12] By 1884 the Academy also gave the figurative “to acquire a feeling or quality in childhood”, as one takes in piety with the milk, and the colloquial “to obtain, land”, as a post, along with the phrase mamar y gruñir for someone never satisfied.^[13] The modern DLE adds the reflexive senses “to get drunk” and “to get the better of someone”, and in Colombia “to back out”.^[4]

In the Americas the reflexive mamarse means “to put up with” in Panama, the Caribbean, Colombia and Chile, and “to tire, get bored” in Colombia; in Mexico and Bolivia mamar means “to exaggerate”.^[14] Corominas records the participle mamado “drunk” in Argentina.^[2] The verb also has vulgar senses, among them “to perform fellatio”.^[1][4]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – Corominas's first record, in Berceo.^[2][3]
• c. 1240–1250 – mamar lech in the Libro de Alexandre.^[10]
• 1246–1252 – Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora.^[10][2]
• 1250 – the Libro de los animales que cazan (Moamín) speaks of asses' milk.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin lallo and sugo for it, and the derivatives mamante and mamantón.^[16][3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it and derives it from Latin mamma.^[11]
• 1734 – Autoridades adds “to eat, gulp down”.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary has the figurative senses and mamar y gruñir.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also intransitive) To suckle, suck milk from the breast: El cordero mamaba de la oveja.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To take in a feeling or quality, or learn something, in childhood: Mamó la música en casa.^[4][17]
3. (transitive, colloquial) To eat, gobble.^[4]
4. (transitive, colloquial, also reflexive) To obtain something, usually without merit: Se mamó un buen cargo.^[4][17]
5. (reflexive, colloquial) To get drunk.^[4]
6. (reflexive, colloquial) To get the better of someone, trick them.^[4]
7. (reflexive, colloquial, Colombia) To back out at the last moment.^[4]
8. (reflexive, Panama, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Colombia, Chile) To put up with something or someone.^[14]
9. (vulgar) To perform fellatio;^[1] mamarla is also “to be tricked”.^[4][1]

Word family

• mamada
• mamador
• mamalón
• mamón
• mamadera
• desmamar
• mamante

Related words

• amamantar
• mama
• mamífero
• Latin mamma

Usage notes

Mamar y gruñir is said to someone who is never content.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 791
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mama
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. mamar
5. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 439
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 4083
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5277a
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
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. mamar
11. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1106
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 468
13. ^ 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. 667
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. mamar
15. ^ 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. mamar
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 376
17. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mamar