nutrir

Forms

nutrir (first-person singular present nutro, first-person singular preterite nutrí, past participle nutrido)^[1] Old Spanish had the inherited verb nodrir, also nudrir.^[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin nūtrīre (“to suckle, nourish, rear”), a learned word.^[4][5][2] Corominas dates it 1623, but the Old Spanish Textual Archive has the form in a text of 1498.^[4][6] It replaced Old Spanish nodrir (also nudrir), the inherited form of the same Latin verb, which Berceo and the Partidas of Alfonso X use.^[2][3] Wiktionary instead treats the modern verb as an alteration of the Old Spanish form.^[1]

The inherited verb is matched by French nourrir, Catalan nodrir (also nudrir), Occitan noirir and Old Galician-Portuguese nodrir;^[7][8][9] Italian nutrire and Portuguese nutrir are learned, like the Spanish verb.^[7] The Latin verb is related to nūtrīx (“nurse”), the source of nodriza.^[10][4] Wiktionary derives it from Proto-Indo-European *snew- (“to suckle”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old Spanish nodrir meant to rear and bring up: the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) has sera nodrido el Antechristo “the Antichrist will be brought up”, and in the Calila e Dimna (1251) a dog raised in the house is bien nodrido.^[3] The learned form nutrir appears in a text of 1498 in the Old Spanish Textual Archive;^[6][4] Corominas's first record is of 1623.^[6][4]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Estoria de España says of a prince that he was nodrido & castigado “brought up and taught” from childhood.^[11] Autoridades (1734) defines nutrir in physiological terms, as increasing the substance of the body by food, and figuratively as giving new strength, especially in moral matters.^[12] The participle nutrido took the figurative sense “full, abundant”, and Chilean usage knew fuego nutrido for sustained gunfire.^[13][14] The DLE now also gives the sense “to fill”.^[5]

Timeline

• 1498 – the Old Spanish Textual Archive has the form nutrir in a text of this year.^[6]
• 1623 – first record of nutrir according to Corominas.^[4]
• 1716 – recorded in Guatemala.^[15]
• 1734 – Autoridades defines the literal and figurative senses.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin nutrire.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To nourish: to supply a living organism with the food it needs to grow and to replace what it loses;^[5][17][1] (reflexive) nutrirse de, to feed on: Estos hongos se nutren de madera muerta.^[5][17][1]
2. (transitive, figurative) To strengthen or sustain, especially morally: La lectura nutrió su vocación.^[5][17]
3. (transitive) To fill (llenar, colmar).^[5]

Word family

• nutrido
• nutrición
• nutritivo
• nutricio
• desnutrición

Related words

• nodriza
• nutrimento
• Latin nūtriō
• French nourrir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4644
3. ^ 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. nutrir
4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nutrir
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. nutrir
6. ^ a b c d Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. nutrir
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6006
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ 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, 946
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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. nutrir
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 695
13. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 499
14. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 32
15. ^ 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. nutrir
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 747
17. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nutrir