pavor

Forms

pavor m (plural pavores)^[1] Old Spanish also had paor, in the Libro de Alexandre, and pavura, with another suffix, in Berceo.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pavor (“sudden fear, terror”).^[2][3][4][1] Because the usual word for fear in Spanish and Portuguese has always been miedo, from metus, and because the other Romance languages lost the ⟨v⟩ between vowels, Corominas suspects a semi-learned word, though he finds the tone of the old examples popular.^[2][1] DICCA-XV and Wikcionario call it a learned borrowing.^[5][6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese pavor, Catalan por, Old Occitan paor, Old French peor (modern French peur) and Sardinian pore; Italian paura has a changed suffix, as Old Spanish pavura does.^[7][8][9][2] The noun itself is formed from Latin paveō (“to tremble with fear”) + -or.^[10][1] Corominas puts pavimento, from paviō (“to beat the ground”), in the same root.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where the Cid tells his wife non ayades pavor porque me veades lidiar “do not be afraid because you see me fight”.^[11][2] The word is frequent in the oldest texts: Berceo, the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca, the Libro de Apolonio and Juan Ruiz.^[2]

Semantic evolution

After the Middle Ages pavor went out of everyday use but stayed in the written language as a literary word;^[2] Corominas thinks it had that character already in Alfonso de Palencia and Nebrija.^[2] Nebrija glossed it as miedo natural.^[5] Autoridades (1737) defines it as fear with fright or alarm and calls it voz puramente Latina “a purely Latin word”.^[12] The Academy has kept the definition “fear with fright or alarm” since 1817.^[13][4] Pavura was revived now and then in modern times, as an Italianism.^[2] The derivative pavoroso is recorded even earlier than pavor itself, about 950 in the Glosas Emilianenses.^[2][3]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – first record of pavor, in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[11][2]
• 1240–1250 – the form paor in the Libro de Alexandre.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it miedo natural.^[5]
• c. 1580 – the derivative despavorido is first recorded.^[2][3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records pavor, pavoroso and despavorido.^[14]
• 1635 – first record in the Americas, in Guatemala.^[15]
• 1737 – Autoridades calls it a purely Latin word.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. Intense fear with fright or alarm; dread, terror: Los truenos le producían pavor.^[4][16][1]

Word family

• pavoroso
• despavorido
• despavorir
• pavura

Related words

• pávido
• impávido
• pavimento
• miedo
• Latin pavor

Usage notes

In Soria, Burgos, Álava, Aragon and Murcia pavor is also a popular form of vapor “steam, vapour”, and in Murcia it means the heat rising to the face from shame or stifling air.^[17][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 442
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pavor
4. ^ 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. pavor
5. ^ a b c 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. pavor
6. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. pavor
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6314
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4864
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. pavor
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 170
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 650
14. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1200
15. ^ 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. pavor
16. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pavor
17. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7035
18. ^ Sevilla, Alberto (1919), Vocabulario murciano, Murcia: Imprenta de Sucesores de Nogués, p. 147