pared

Forms

pared f (plural paredes)^[1] Old Spanish wrote parete (1043), paret and pared.^[2][3] The metathesised form pader is widespread in popular speech in Andalusia and Spanish America, from Colombia to Argentina.^[2][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish pared, inherited from Late Latin parēs (“wall”), the popular form of Latin pariēs.^[2][4][5][1] In Vulgar Latin the /i/ in hiatus became [j] and the resulting [je] was reduced to [eː]; inscriptions show the reduced form.^[2][1] Virgil and other classical poets already scan the accusative as three syllables.^[2][6]

The word is common to all the Romance languages except Sardinian: Portuguese parede, Galician parede, Asturian parede, Aragonese paret, Catalan paret, Occitan paret, French paroi, Italian parete and Romanian perete.^[2][7][8] The Latin noun was masculine, but all the Romance languages except Romanian and some Italian dialects made it feminine.^[2]

The further origin of the Latin noun is unknown: de Vaan calls a link with Germanic words for “beam”, such as Old High German sparro, a paper reconstruction, and the DHLF finds no sure cognate in the other Indo-European languages.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH dates the first record to a charter of 1043 with the form parete, and pared to 1203.^[2][4] The Razón de amor (c. 1205, in a manuscript of 1250–1260) has en una blanca paret çinco kandelas ponet, “put five candles on a white wall”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X used the word for the wall of a building and, figuratively, for “stronghold”.^[12] Covarrubias (1611) collected many proverbs: las paredes tienen oídos “walls have ears”, poner pies en pared “to insist firmly”, estar entre cuatro paredes and pared en medio “next door”, and suggested a Hebrew origin that later scholars did not follow.^[13] Autoridades (1737) added the figurative senses “the level surface of a well-grown field of barley or wheat” and “a close-set group of things”.^[14]

The modern DLE also has “the side surface of a body”, and the football sense hacer la pared, the one-two pass between team-mates.^[5] The derivative paredón is known especially as the wall where people are shot.^[15] Through Spanish the word reached Tagalog as pader.^[1]

Timeline

• 1043 – first record, parete, in a charter.^[2][4]
• 1203 – the form pared appears.^[2]
• c. 1205 – the Razón de amor has paret.^[11]
• 1220–1250 – first record of emparedado.^[4]
• 1525 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City: la pared de la calle.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records las paredes tienen oídos and other proverbs.^[13]
• 1737 – Autoridades adds the senses of standing grain and of things pressed together.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wall: a vertical piece of masonry that encloses or divides a space: Colgó el espejo en la pared del pasillo.^[5][1]
2. A panel of any material that divides or encloses a space.^[5]
3. The side surface of a body or cavity.^[5][18]
4. The flat, high surface formed by barley or wheat that has grown tall and thick.^[5]
5. A close-packed group of things or people.^[5]
6. (sport) In football, a one-two: a pass to a team-mate who returns the ball at once a few metres further on, as in hacer la pared.^[5]

Word family

• paredón
• emparedar
• emparedado
• paredaño

Related words

• parietal
• parietaria
• Latin pariēs
• Portuguese parede
• Catalan paret

Usage notes

Pared is feminine, though Latin pariēs was masculine.^[2] Common phrases are pared maestra “load-bearing wall”, pared medianera “party wall” and pared celular “cell wall”.^[5][18]

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 h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 400
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. pared
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pared
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. pared
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. pariēs
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4809
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. paries
9. ^ 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. pariēs
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. paroi
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. pared
12. ^ 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. pared
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. 1194
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 128
15. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. pared
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. pader
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 790
18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pared