osar

Forms

osar (first-person singular present oso, first-person singular preterite osé, past participle osado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *ausāre (“to dare”), a frequentative formed on ausus, the past participle of Latin audeō (“to dare”).^[2][3][1][4] Wiktionary treats the form as Late Latin: ausāre is attested only in one manuscript of a grammatical work linked to 7th-century Irish circles.^[1]

The same verb is Portuguese ousar, Galician ousar, Catalan gosar, Occitan ausar, French oser and Italian osare.^[5][6] The Catalan word was osar at first and later took an initial consonant, as some Occitan and Lombard forms did.^[7] García de Diego explains the ⟨g⟩ as a consonant that grew between the vowels of aosar.^[6]

De Vaan derives the Latin verb from avidus (“greedy”): at first it meant “to want very much”, a sense kept in the polite formula sōdēs (“if you please”), from an older phrase meaning “if you will”.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's Breve diccionario dates the first record to the end of the 10th century.^[2] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) it is used with an infinitive or alone: Conbidarle ien de grado, mas ninguno non osava: / el rey don Alfonso tanto avié la grand saña “they would gladly have invited him, but none dared, so great was King Alfonso's anger”.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish osar worked like a modal verb, mostly followed by an infinitive (non osé decir, cuemo osas fablar in the Cid).^[10] Covarrubias (1611) records the old expression aosadas, which meant “I would dare bet”.^[11] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1737) defines it as to venture on something boldly, and adds a sense “to come into one's imagination” from a passage of Cervantes.^[12] The 1884 edition of the Academy's dictionary derived it from Latin ausus “bold”.^[13]

The DLE notes that the verb, now transitive, was once also used intransitively.^[3] Moliner calls it a learned or solemn word, used mostly with disapproval of someone's nerve, and Bénaben and Vox find it formal or rare beside atreverse.^[14][15][16]

Timeline

• late 10th century – the first record according to Corominas's Breve diccionario.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has osava and the participle osado.^[9][2]
• 1208 – the Cortes de León use it in a text copied in its own time.^[9]
• 1220–1250 – the noun osadía is first recorded.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin audeo and confido.^[17]
• 1521 – the first record from the Americas, in Cuba.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the old phrase aosadas.^[11]
• 1737 – Autoridades defines it.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, formerly also intransitive) To dare, venture on something boldly: Nadie osó contradecir al director.^[3][1]
2. (obsolete) To come into one's mind or imagination.^[12]

Word family

• osado
• osadía

Related words

• audaz
• Latin audeō
• Portuguese ousar

Usage notes

A rare homograph, osar “ossuary”, the same as osario, is a noun formed from hueso “bone”.^[3][14][19] The verb belongs to a formal register; everyday speech uses atreverse.^[14][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. osar
3. ^ a b c d 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. osar
4. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 812
7. ^ 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. 4, 580
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ 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. osar
10. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. osar
11. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1180
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 63
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 767
14. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. osar
15. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. osar
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 390
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. osar
19. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. osar 1