ojo

Forms

ojo m (plural ojos)^[1] Old Spanish wrote oio and ojo; the diphthongised uejo is also old Castilian, and uellos, hueyllo occur in eastern texts.^[2][3] Aragonese has uello and güello, Asturian güeyu, and Mozarabic is recorded with forms like welyo.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin oculus (“eye”), in the Vulgar Latin form oclus with the unstressed vowel lost, and Old Spanish already wrote ojo.^[5][6][1][7] It is a doublet of the learned óculo.^[1]

The same Latin word is Portuguese olho, Galician ollo, Asturian güeyu, Aragonese uello, Catalan ull, French œil, Italian occhio and Romanian ochi.^[3][8][1]

The Latin word goes back to *ok(e)lo-, a derivative in ⟨-lo-⟩ of the Indo-European word for “eye”, *h₃ekʷ-; most Indo-European languages have a root noun or an i-stem, so the Latin formation is probably an Italic one.^[9] Its cognates include ὄσσε (ósse, “the two eyes”) and akìs (“eye”).^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) uses the word in its opening lines, as the hero looks back weeping at his house: „De los sos ojos tan fuertemientre llorando” “weeping so bitterly from his eyes”.^[5][11] The first record in a text without a later copy is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), with a heading on breaking someone's eye.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word already named things shaped like an eye, such as the spot on a peacock's tail and the bud of a vine, and Spanish kept and extended these uses: the eye of a needle, the arch of a bridge, the keyhole, the holes in bread or cheese.^[12] Ojo de agua “spring”, recorded about 1280, is a metaphor found in languages of many families, the place where underground water “sees the light”.^[5][13] Alfonso X already used ojo alone for a spring in a plain.^[14] In the American Southwest ojo is the usual word for a spring and appears in many place names, such as Ojo Caliente.^[15]

Autoridades also recorded the sense “evil eye” (now mal de ojo) and “attention, care”, the source of the interjection ¡ojo! “look out!”.^[16][17] Derivatives include antojo “whim” (c. 1260), from setting something before one's eyes, and ojeriza “grudge” (1588).^[5][12]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid: de los sos ojos tan fuertemientre llorando.^[5][11]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes writes oio.^[11]
• 1220–1250 – the derivative ojera first recorded.^[5]
• c. 1260 – antojo and antojarse first recorded.^[5]
• c. 1280 – ojo de agua “spring”.^[5]
• 1512 – first records in the Americas, in Puerto Rico, including ojo “note!” written in a margin.^[18]
• 1678 – ojo de agua “spring” in a document of Florida.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records the senses “sight”, “attention” and “evil eye”.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology Latin oculus.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The eye, organ of sight in humans and animals.^[6][1]
2. The visible part of the eye in the face: Tiene los ojos verdes.^[6][20]
3. The eye of a needle.^[6]
4. A hole or opening that goes right through something.^[6]
5. The ring of a tool through which the handle or the fingers go; each ring of a pair of scissors; the bow of a key.^[6]
6. A keyhole.^[6][1]
7. The closed curve of some letters.^[6]
8. A spring that rises in flat ground.^[6][15]
9. Each of the drops of oil or fat floating on another liquid.^[6]
10. The coloured ring at the tip of each tail feather of a peacock.^[6]
11. The span between two piers of a bridge.^[6]
12. (figurative) Care, attention, caution.^[1][17]
13. (Canary Islands, Honduras, Bolivia) A bud of a plant or tuber.^[21][22]

Interjection

1. ¡ojo! Look out!, watch out!, careful!^[1][16]

Word family

• ojal
• ojear
• ojera
• ojete
• anteojo
• antojarse
• desojar
• ojeriza
• ojeroso
• aojar

Related words

• óculo
• ocular
• oculista
• Latin oculus
• Portuguese olho

Usage notes

Cuatro ojos is a colloquial name for someone who wears glasses.^[6] Baralt, a purist of 1855, held that in serious style many phrases need the plural ojos (mirar con malos ojos), and abrir el ojo or ojo avizor the singular.^[23]

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. ojo
3. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. oculus
4. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. güeyu
5. ^ 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. ojo
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. ojo
7. ^ Monlau, Pedro Felipe (1856), Diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana (ensayo), Madrid: Imprenta de la Sociedad Literaria y Tipográfica, p. 350
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6038
9. ^ 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, p. s.v. oculus
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. oculus
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. ojo
12. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. ojo
13. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 504
14. ^ 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. ojo
15. ^ a b c Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 456
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 27
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 612
18. ^ 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. ojo
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 756
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ojo
21. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. ojo
22. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. ojo
23. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 478