muerte

Forms

muerte f (plural muertes)^[1] Old Spanish often has the apocopated form muert, as in the Cantar de mio Cid and the Liber Regum; the undiphthongised morte also occurs.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mors (“death”).^[4][5][6][1] The noun belongs to the family of morir, with muerto and the learned mortal.^[4][5]

The same Latin word is Portuguese morte, Galician morte, Asturian muerte, Catalan mort, Occitan mort, French mort, Italian morte and Romanian moarte.^[7][8][1]

The Latin noun goes back to *mortis and Proto-Indo-European *mértis (“death”), from the root *mer- (“to die”), which also gave morior (“to die”).^[1] De Vaan reconstructs the noun as *mr-ti-, an abstract beside the verb *mr-ie/o- “to die”, and compares Sanskrit, Old Irish and Hittite forms of the root.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the word in the earliest texts, the Glosas Silenses of the end of the 10th century.^[4][5] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) the Cid says of Valencia „a menos de muert no la puedo dexar” “I cannot give it up except by death”.^[3] The first hit without a later copy is the Cortes de Benavente of 1202: „fasta muerte de aquel” “until the death of that man”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose (1250–1284) already uses the word for the end of life, in de muerte “mortally”, mala muerte for a death without confession, and muerte del alma for the state of the soul in sin.^[10] Autoridades (1734) defines it as the separation of body and soul, and adds the senses “homicide” and a violent passion that seems to put one in danger of death, as in muerte de risa and muerte de amor.^[11] The Academy's 1817 dictionary also lists the human skeleton as a figure of death and the legal muerte civil.^[12] The 1884 edition gave the etymology and the figurative sense “destruction, ruin”, as in la muerte de un imperio.^[13]

Today the DLE lists the end of life, the separation of body and soul in traditional thought, the act of killing, destruction, the skeleton with a scythe that personifies death, and, colloquially, an unbearable thing or person.^[6] In Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay the phrase cada muerte de obispo means “very rarely”.^[14]

Timeline

• end of the 10th century – the Glosas Silenses.^[4][5]
• c. 1140 – the apocopated muert in the Cantar de mio Cid, known from a 14th-century copy.^[3]
• 1202 – muerte in the Cortes de Benavente, the first record without a later copy.^[3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of saving a man from death.^[10]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Latin mors, nex and funus as equivalents.^[15]
• 1518 – first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[16]
• 1734 – Autoridades adds the senses “homicide” and “violent passion”.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology and the sense “destruction, ruin”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. death: the end of life.^[6][1]
2. In traditional thought, the separation of the body and the soul.^[6]
3. The act of killing someone; a homicide: Lo acusan de dos muertes.^[6][17]
4. destruction, ruin, the end of something: la muerte de una lengua.^[6][1]
5. (often capitalised) Death personified, a human skeleton often carrying a scythe.^[6][1]
6. (colloquial) Something or someone extremely tiresome or unbearable.^[6]

Word family

• muerte súbita
• pena de muerte

Related words

• morir
• mortal
• mortífero
• muerto
• amortiguar
• Latin mors
• Portuguese morte
• Catalan mort

Usage notes

Set phrases include a muerte “to the death; relentlessly”, de mala muerte “wretched, of little worth”, pena de muerte “death penalty” and muerte súbita, also the tie-break in sport.^[1][17]

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. muerte
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. muerte
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 149
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. morir
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. muerte
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. muerte
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 625
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 588
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. 724
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. muerte
15. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 383
16. ^ 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. muerte
17. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. muerte