mueble

Forms

mueble m (plural muebles)^[1] Old Spanish has moeble, moble, mueble, and with /r/ moebre, mobre and muebre.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish moeble, inherited from Latin mōbilis (“movable”).^[4][5][1][6] Corominas explains the stressed /ue/, where Latin had a long /oː/, by the influence of the stressed forms of the verb mover.^[3][7] Bénaben and Wiktionary say the same: the vowel of the adjective was shortened in Vulgar Latin after the verb, and so it took the same diphthong as the verb.^[8][1]

Menéndez Pidal had proposed Vulgar Latin *movibilis as the source, which would have given the Old Spanish form and then the modern one.^[3] Corominas rejects it: the Latinised spellings of the 11th and 12th centuries were made up by notaries for the Romance word, and the variant muobre of the Libro de Alexandre and the French form both point to a base with /o/.^[3] García de Diego still derives the word from a Latin movebilis.^[9]

The same Latin word is French meuble, Occitan moble, Catalan moble, Galician moble and Portuguese móvel.^[10][9] The Latin adjective is formed from moveō (“to move”) with -bilis.^[11][1] Wiktionary takes it back to an older *moubilis and Proto-Italic *moweðlis, and the verb to Proto-Indo-European *m(y)ewh₁- (“to move”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the word indirectly from 1030, in Latinised spellings such as mobivile and movebile, then as muebele in 1084 and as mueble in 1207.^[3] In the early charters and fueros it is a legal word for movable property, set against land and houses: the Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250) lets a man leave his goods tan bien en mueble como en rayz “in movables as well as in real estate”.^[12] The prose of Alfonso X speaks of cosas muebles in the same sense.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The legal sense came from Latin, where res mobiles were movable goods and Late Latin used the neuter mobile, mobilia as a noun for them.^[14][15] Covarrubias in 1611 and the Diccionario de Autoridades still defined mueble only by the law of the Partidas, as what can be carried from one place to another, as opposed to bienes raíces.^[16][17] The Libro de Alexandre already used muebre for valuables, and in Colunga (Asturias) mueble means livestock.^[3]

Terreros gives a separate sense, a movable object that furnishes or adorns a house.^[18] Salvá recorded it in 1846, with the familiar use for a useless person, and the Academy defined it as a household article in 1869.^[19][20] Today it means above all a piece of furniture, often in the singular as a collective (la historia del mueble), and in heraldry a small charge on a shield.^[4][6]

In Argentina and Uruguay mueble is an hourly hotel for couples, and in the Dominican Republic a three-piece suite.^[21][22] In Puerto Rico it is an unsaleable or useless object, and Membreño noted the same use for out-of-date stock among the merchants of Honduras.^[23][24][25] Tagalog borrowed the plural as muwebles.^[1]

Timeline

• 1030 – first indirect record, in Latinised spellings of the Romance word.^[3][7]
• 1084 – the spelling muebele.^[3]
• 1207 – the form mueble.^[3]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita sets mueble against rayz “real estate”.^[12]
• 1221 – the form moebre in the fueros of Villavicencio.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: “a thing that moves”, Latin mobilis.^[26]
• 1554 – first record in the Americas, at Cartagena: todo el mueble de mi casa.^[27]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it by the Partidas.^[16]
• 1846 – Salvá records the senses “household article” and “useless person”.^[19]
• 1869 – the Academy adds the sense “piece of furniture”.^[20]
• 1884 – the collective moblaje enters the Academy's dictionary.^[3][7]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin mobilis.^[28]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (law) Of property: movable, that can be carried from one place to another: bienes muebles.^[4][6]

Noun

1. A piece of furniture: any of the movable objects used in or decorating a house, office or other room: Compraron un mueble para el salón.^[4][1]
2. (heraldry) A small charge on a shield, such as a ring or a fleur-de-lis.^[4]
3. (in the plural) Movable goods.^[4]
4. (Argentina, Uruguay) A love hotel, rented by the hour.^[21]
5. (Dominican Republic) A three-piece suite: a sofa and two matching armchairs.^[21][22]
6. (Puerto Rico) A useless or unsaleable object.^[24][29]
7. (Mexico, colloquial) A person who plays no part in a situation.^[1]

Word family

• amueblar
• guardamuebles
• mueblería
• mueblista
• moblaje
• mueblaje

Related words

• mobiliario
• mover
• móvil
• inmueble
• French meuble

Usage notes

The idiom salvar los muebles means to avoid a complete failure.^[4] A mueble bar is a cabinet for drinks.^[6][30]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. mueble
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 169
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. mueble
5. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. mueble
6. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mueble
7. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mover
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. mueble
9. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4454
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5624
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. mueble
13. ^ 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. mueble
14. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. meuble
15. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. mobilis
16. ^ 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. 1152
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 624
18. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 632
19. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 737
20. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 525
21. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. mueble
22. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. mueble
23. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 577
24. ^ a b Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. mueble
25. ^ Membreño, Alberto (1897), Hondureñismos: vocabulario de los provincialismos de Honduras, 2nd ed., Tegucigalpa: Tipografía Nacional, p. 119
26. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 383
27. ^ 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. mueble
28. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 679
29. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 258
30. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. mueble