nervio

Forms

nervio m (plural nervios)^[1] Old Spanish wrote nerbio, neruio and nerujo.^[2][3] An old and popular form niervo, from Latin nervus, is recorded in Old Spanish and Aragonese and is used by Cervantes and Covarrubias beside nervio.^[4][5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish nerbio, inherited from Vulgar Latin nervium (“sinew, nerve”), a variant of Latin nervus.^{[7][8][9][10]} The older form niervo, with the diphthong of stressed ⟨e⟩, continues the classical noun itself.^[1][4] De Vaan records a neuter plural nervia (“sinews, tendons”) from Varro on.^[11]

The variant in ⟨-ium⟩ also gave Catalan nervi (and nirvi), Occitan nervi and Sardinian forms, while French nerf, Italian nervo (and nerbo) and Portuguese nervo go back to the classical form.^[12][4][13]

The Latin noun probably arose by metathesis from an older *neuros, *(s)nēuros, a thematic form of Proto-Indo-European *snéh₁wr̥ (“sinew”), and is cognate with Ancient Greek νεῦρον (neûron, “sinew, string”) and Sanskrit स्नावन् (snā́van, “sinew”).^[11][1] The Greek word is the source of the learned neurona and neurosis.^[7][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is the Old Testament vision of the dry bones in Almerich's La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy): E daré sobre vos nerbios e daré sobre vos carne “and I will lay sinews upon you and bring flesh upon you”.^[3][2] The BDELC dates it 1251, from Calila e Dimna, where a nervio taken from a dead animal makes a crossbow string.^[7][3] In the Libro de Alexandre it is the sinew of a lance.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish already used the word both for the nerves and for tendons: Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of sciatica that comes from the shrinking of the neruio of the leg, and his astrological works of the veins of plant leaves.^[14] The General estoria (1280) also has neruio for a kind of stocks in which prisoners were held, a sense the current dictionary keeps.^[14][8]

Covarrubias noted in 1611 that a speech with no convincing arguments was said to have no nieruos, and that sinewy men were lean.^[6] The Diccionario de Autoridades gave the anatomical sense and, as metaphors, the strongest part of anything (La Milicia es el nérvio, y aun la vida de los Imperios) and the force of an argument.^[15] The current dictionary adds the cords of a book's spine, the ribs of a Gothic vault, a nautical sense and, in the plural, a state of nervous tension.^[8] In El Salvador, Ecuador and Chile it is a vulgar word for the penis.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – nerbios in Almerich's Fazienda de Ultra Mar (13th-century copy).^[3]
• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre (15th-century copy) has a lance de nervio.^[3]
• 1251 – Calila e Dimna, the BDELC's first record.^[7]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses neruio for nerves and tendons.^[14]
• 1495 – the BDELC's first dates for nervioso and nerviosidad.^[7]
• 1548 – the first record from the Americas, as niervos, in Mexico City.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias lists nervio, o nieruo.^[6]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. nervus”; the current one has “lat. vulg. nervium”.^[18][8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) A nerve: a whitish cord of nerve fibres carrying impulses between the central nervous system and the rest of the body.^[8][1]
2. A tendon or other tough white tissue; sinew.^[8]
3. (botany) A vein running along a leaf.^[8]
4. Each of the cords across the spine of a book, and the ridge it makes on the binding.^[8]
5. Strength, vigour; the force of an argument: un discurso sin nervio.^[8][15]
6. (architecture) A rib of a vault (bóveda).^[8]
7. (in the plural) Nervousness, a state of tension: Antes de la entrevista tenía los nervios de punta.^[8]
8. (El Salvador, Ecuador, Chile; vulgar) The penis.^[16]

Word family

• nervioso
• nervudo
• nerviosidad

Related words

• Latin nervus
• Portuguese nervo

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. nervio
3. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. nervio
4. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. nervus
5. ^ 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. 786
6. ^ 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. 1161
7. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nervio
8. ^ 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. nervio
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4581
10. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. nervio
11. ^ 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
12. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. nervium
13. ^ 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, 913
14. ^ a b c 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. nervio
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 663
16. ^ 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. nervio
17. ^ 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. ñervo
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 737