oso

Forms

oso m (plural osos, feminine osa, feminine plural osas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote osso beside oso, with the voiceless /s/ the word always had in the old language; the Libro de Alexandre has orso, orsa.^[2][3] Aragonese and Navarrese onso is recorded from about 1200, and Judeo-Spanish has lonso.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish osso, inherited from Latin ursus (“bear”).^[2][5][6][1] Wiktionary sets up an intermediate Vulgar Latin form *ussus, with the Latin cluster /rs/ assimilated to /ss/;^[1] Corominas notes that Castilian and Catalan make this assimilation regularly.^[1][2] The feminine osa continues ursa.^[6][5]

The word is common to all the Romance languages: Asturian osu, Galician oso, Catalan ós, French ours, Italian orso and Romanian urs.^[1][7][4] Corominas calls Portuguese urso semi-learned.^[2] Old Portuguese had usso and osso;^[8][9] Nascentes thinks the second form was given up because it sounded like the word for “bone”.^[8][9] Aragonese onso and Old Catalan ons got their /n/ from the very frequent phrase ⟨un oso⟩, which spread its nasal to the noun, as in Extremaduran ⟨el nosu⟩;^[1][10] Judeo-Spanish lonso is a dissimilated form of ⟨un nonso⟩.^[2]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂ŕ̥tḱos (“bear”), the source also of Ancient Greek ἄρκτος (árktos).^[1][10] De Vaan points out that the Latin initial u- is irregular, since *orsus would be expected, and suspects a taboo distortion of the name of the animal.^[10] The DHLF adds that Germanic, Baltic and Slavic replaced the inherited word with new names, also because of a hunting taboo.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH's first record is a charter of 1032, and the word is in Berceo.^[2][5] Alfonso X's Lapidario (1250–1279) says of a stone that where it lies no fazen danno … leones ni ossos “neither lions nor bears do harm”, the animal sense that the word has had in every period.^[12][2]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 takes the name from Latin ursus, reports a fanciful Hebrew etymology, and repeats the story that a bear killed King Favila while he was hunting.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades describes the bear of the Spanish mountains, which climbs trees and steals beehives for their honey; the Academy later named this one oso colmenero.^[14][15] The Academy added oso blanco in 1817 and oso marino, a seal, in 1843.^[15][16] In the Americas the name was given to other animals: an account from Santo Domingo of 1549 already describes the oso hormiguero, the anteater.^[17]

Applied to people, the noun names a very hairy or ugly man, and in slang a large hairy gay man.^[18][1] In Mexico oso is an embarrassing or ridiculous act, as in hacer el oso; in Colombia it is the shyness felt when saying or doing something; in Cuba and the Dominican Republic it is a bully or braggart.^{[19][20][21][22]}

Timeline

• 1032 – first record, in a charter.^[2][5]
• c. 1200 – the Aragonese form onso in the Cronicón Villarense.^[2]
• c. 1250 – the feminine osa.^[5]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario names ossos beside lions.^[12]
• 14th century – the derivative osezno “bear cub”.^[2][5]
• 1549 – the oso hormiguero (anteater) in an account from Santo Domingo.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias tells of the bear that killed King Favila.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary lists oso blanco and oso colmenero.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. ursus”.^[23]

Meanings

Noun

1. bear: a large plantigrade carnivorous mammal with thick brown fur, strong clawed limbs and a very short tail, living in wooded mountains; feminine osa.^[6][1]
2. oso blanco, oso polar: the polar bear.^[6][18]
3. oso hormiguero: the anteater.^[18][17]
4. (colloquial) A very hairy or ugly man.^[18]
5. (slang) A large, hairy gay man.^[1][24]
6. (Mexico, colloquial) A ridiculous or embarrassing act;^[19][20] (Colombia) shyness at doing or saying something: Me dio oso hablar delante de todos.^[19][20]
7. (Cuba, Dominican Republic) A bully, a quarrelsome braggart.^[19][21][22]

Word family

• osera
• osezno
• osito
• osuno

Related words

• Latin ursus
• Portuguese urso
• Catalan ós

Usage notes

Old Spanish also had a noun oso “daring, boldness”, a postverbal noun of osar, in the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca and Alfonso X's General estoria.^[25][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 319
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. oso
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. ursus
5. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. oso
6. ^ 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. oso
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3440
9. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. urso
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. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. ours
12. ^ a b c 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. oso
13. ^ 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
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 63
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 622
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 518
17. ^ a b c Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
18. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. oso
19. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. oso
20. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. oso
21. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 602
22. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. oso
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 768
24. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. oso
25. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 314