oír

Forms

oír (first-person singular present oigo, first-person singular preterite oí, past participle oído)^[1] Old Spanish wrote the infinitive oir or oyr, and the Cid has the future odredes “you will hear”.^[2][3] Asturian and the speech of Burgos, Santander and Salamanca have oyer, remade on the first person oyo;^[4][5] Asturian also has oer.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish oir, inherited from Latin audiō (“to hear”).^[6][7][1] The same Latin verb is Portuguese ouvir, Galician ouvir, Catalan oir, French ouïr, Italian udire and Romanian auzi.^[4][8][1] Nascentes explains the Portuguese ⟨v⟩ as a glide that grew between the vowels of an older ouir.^[9]

The Latin verb goes back to *awizdiō.^[10] De Vaan and Wiktionary analyse it as a compound of *h₂ewis (“clearly, manifestly”) and the root *dʰeh₁- in the sense “to render”, so originally “to make manifest”.^[10][1] Its cognates are ἀΐω (aḯō, “to perceive, hear”), αἰσθάνομαι (aisthánomai, “to perceive”) and आविस् (āvís, “openly”).^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) already has the verb in its plain sense: Martín Antolínez speaks, and the poet tells his audience odredes lo que á dicho “you will hear what he has said”.^[3][6] The first record the CDH has in a text without a later copy is in the Cortes de Benavente of 1202: oida la razon “the case having been heard”, already in the legal sense of hearing both parties.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The prose of Alfonso X already shows the main senses of today: to perceive a sound, to grant a plea (a stone makes its bearer oydo & obedecido “heard and obeyed”), and to learn something by hearsay; the infinitive was also a noun, el oyr “the sense of hearing”.^[11] Medieval Latin had given audire the senses “to try a case” and “to attend lectures”, both continued by the Spanish verb.^[12][7]

In the imperative, ¡oye! and ¡oiga! are used to call someone's attention or to express surprise or reproach; with strangers, Moliner considers ¡oiga! rude.^[13] In Cuba and Uruguay oigo answers the telephone, and in Peru the shortened forms óe and oíte call a listener's attention.^[14] In Latin America the reflexive means “to sound”: eso se oye bien.^[1]

The verb has kept its full vigour in Spain, but Coromines notes that in the Río de la Plata and several other South American countries it has lost much ground to sentir, as Catalan oir, French ouïr and Old Italian udire lost ground to sentir, entendre and sentire; he puts this decline down mainly to the shortness of the word.^[15] In French ouïr gave way to entendre from the 12th century and had almost disappeared by the early 16th.^[8]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has the future odredes “you will hear”.^[3][6]
• 1202 – oida la razon in the Cortes de Benavente, the first record without a later copy.^[3]
• 1212 – first record of the derivative oidor “hearer; judge”.^[6]
• 1220–1250 – first record of the participle noun oído “ear; hearing”.^[6]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the verb for hearing, for granting pleas and for learning by hearsay, and the infinitive as a noun.^[11]
• 1438 – first record of oyente “listener”.^[6]
• 1518 – the first records from the Americas, in Tierra Firme and Santo Domingo.^[16]
• 1605 – first record of oíslo, a familiar name for one's wife, from the question ¿lo oís? “do you hear it?”.^[6]
• 1600s – first record of desoír “to ignore, disregard”.^[6]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also intransitive) To hear: to perceive sounds with the ear: Desde aquí no se oye el tren.^[7][1]
2. (transitive) To heed or grant someone's requests, pleas or warnings: Por fin oyeron sus ruegos.^[7][13]
3. (transitive) To take note of, or acknowledge, what one is told.^[7]
4. (transitive, dated) To attend a teacher's lectures on a subject in order to learn it: Oyó leyes en Salamanca.^[7]
5. (transitive, law) Of an authority: to consider the pleas of the parties before deciding a case.^[7]
6. (imperative, colloquial) ¡Oye!, ¡oiga!: used to call someone's attention or to express surprise or reproach.^[13]
7. (reflexive, Latin America) To sound: La radio se oye rara.^[1]

Word family

• oído
• oyente
• oidor
• desoír
• oíslo

Related words

• audición
• audiencia
• auditor
• inaudito
• Latin audiō
• Portuguese ouvir

Usage notes

The present is irregular: oigo, oyes, oye; preterite oí, participle oído.^[1] Set phrases include como lo oyes (or como lo oye), used to insist on something hard to believe, and ahora lo oigo, said on hearing a piece of news.^[7] Oír is hearing as such, and escuchar listening with attention, but in many uses the two overlap.^[13][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. oír
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. oír
4. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. audire
5. ^ a b Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. oyer
6. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. oír
7. ^ 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. oír
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 779
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. ouvir
10. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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. oír
12. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. audire
13. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. oír
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. oír
15. ^ 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. 6, 39
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. oír
17. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. oír