orinar

Forms

orinar (first-person singular present orino, first-person singular preterite oriné, past participle orinado)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish orina + -ar: Corominas lists it among the derivatives of the noun, and DICCA-XV derives it from the noun as well.^[2][3][4] The DLE, Moliner and Wiktionary instead take it directly from Latin urināre, which Wiktionary describes as an early form of the deponent ūrīnor (“to dive, plunge into water”); in Medieval Latin the verb meant “to urinate”.^[5][6][1][7] Other Romance forms are Catalan orinar, also derived from the noun, and Italian orinare.^[8][1] The English word urinate is a cognate.^[1]

The noun goes back to Latin ūrīna (“urine”).^[2][3] It was long derived from the Greek οὖρον (oûron, “urine”), but Corominas, following Ernout and Meillet, treats it as a native Latin word.^[2] De Vaan reconstructs *ūr-īno- (“watery”), from Proto-Indo-European *u(e/o)h₁-r (“water”), and notes that the related verb meaning “to dive” shows “urine” to be a secondary sense.^[9] The initial ⟨o⟩ is shared by the other Romance forms, and Tallgren and Brüch explained it by the influence of aurum (“gold”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is found in De secreto secretorum, a text of 1376–1396.^[10][4] Nebrija's Latin–Spanish and Spanish–Latin dictionaries, of 1492 and about 1495, have potro para urinar “chamber pot” for Latin matella fictilis.^[4] Corominas dates the word only from about 1580, in Fray Luis de Granada, whom the Diccionario de Autoridades quotes: porque no anduviesse siempre orinando “so that he should not always be passing water”.^[2][11]

Semantic evolution

Corominas calls orinar the refined word that stands in for the popular mear.^[2] Percyvall (1591) translates it “to piss”, and Terreros gives mear as its equivalent.^[12][13] The Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as emptying the bladder and adds that it is sometimes used transitively, as in orinar sangre “to pass blood”.^[11] The Academy recorded the reflexive use in 1843, and its 1884 edition was the first to give the Latin urinare as the etymology.^[14][15] Today the reflexive orinarse is used for wetting oneself, and the medical dictionary DTME gives miccionar as a synonym.^[6][16] In Nicaragua and the Dominican Republic orinarse also means to be attracted to or in love with someone.^[17]

Timeline

• 1376–1396 – De secreto secretorum has the verb.^[10][4]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary has potro para urinar.^[4]
• 1541 – first record in the Americas, in Michoacán.^[18]
• c. 1580 – Fray Luis de Granada uses it, Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it in English.^[12]
• 1843 – the Academy notes the reflexive use.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives Latin urinare as its etymology.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To urinate, pass water; also used reflexively.^[5][1]
2. (transitive) To pass another liquid through the urethra: orinar sangre.^[5]
3. (transitive) To urinate on something.^[1]
4. (reflexive) To wet oneself; to urinate involuntarily or in the wrong place.^[6][19]
5. (reflexive, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic) To be attracted to someone or in love with them.^[17]

Related words

• orinal
• urinario
• mear
• Latin urina
• English urinate

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 299
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. orina
4. ^ a b c d e Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. orinar
5. ^ a b c 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. orinar
6. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. orinar
7. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. orinar
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 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
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 57
12. ^ a b Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 181
13. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 723
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 516
15. ^ 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. 766
16. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. orinar
17. ^ 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. orinar
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. orinar
19. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. orinar