pedo

Forms

pedo m (plural pedos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pēditum (“a fart”), the past participle of pēdō (“to fart”) used as a noun.^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The verb itself gave peer, which Spanish alone has kept; most other Romance languages replaced it with a verb formed on the noun, such as Portuguese peidar, Catalan petar and French péter.^[2]

The same Latin noun is Portuguese peido, Galician peido, Asturian peu, Catalan pet, French pet and Italian peto.^[6][7][8] García de Diego derives the Catalan form from a contracted *pedtum, and the DHLF explains the French one in the same way.^[6][9]

The Latin verb goes back to *pezdō and *pesd- (“to fart”), whose cognates include βδέω (bdéō) and bezdėti.^[10][1] De Vaan considers the shape of the root onomatopoeic.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the CDH is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), which fines anyone who puts his backside in another man's face or en la cara pedo diere “farts in his face” three hundred sueldos.^[11] The same penalty is in the Fuero de Úbeda and the Fuero de Cuenca.^[11] Corominas's first record is later: a glossary of the Escorial of about 1400.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the Middle Ages to the 19th century the dictionaries give only the literal sense; the Diccionario de Autoridades quotes the proverb amor de monja y pedo de fraile, todo es aire “a nun's love and a friar's fart are all air”.^[12] Pedo de lobo, literally “wolf's fart”, has named the puffball since the Academy's 1817 edition;^{[13][4][14][8]} Catalan and Asturian have the same name.^{[13][4][14][8]}

The sense “drunkenness” is first recorded in Buenos Aires in the 1820s and 1830s.^[15] Corominas explains it by the bad smell of a drunk, and notes the same sense in Catalan pet.^[2] The DLE gives this sense without a regional label, and the word is also an adjective, “drunk” or “high”.^[4][16][1] In Argentina al pedo means “in vain, for nothing”, recorded by Alemany in 1917.^[17] In Mexico and Central America the word also means a problem or row, a party (El Salvador and Mexico), or a lie.^[4][18][19]

Timeline

• 1218–1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes punishes a man who farts in another's face.^[11]
• 1276–1300 – the Fuero de Béjar.^[20]
• c. 1400 – Corominas's first record, in a glossary of the Escorial and the Cancionero de Baena.^[2]
• 1495 – the derivative pedorro appears in Nebrija.^[3]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas, in a Spanish–Nahuatl vocabulary printed in Mexico City.^[15]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades quotes the proverb amor de monja y pedo de fraile, todo es aire.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds pedo de lobo, the puffball.^[13]
• 1833 – tomé un pedo tremendo “I got terribly drunk”, in Buenos Aires.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, Latin peditum.^[21]
• 1917 – Alemany records al pedo “in vain” in Argentina.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. (vulgar) A fart: gas let out of the bowels through the anus.^[4][1]
2. (vulgar) drunkenness, a drunken state; also the effect of a drug: Volvió a casa con un pedo enorme.^[4][16]
3. (El Salvador, Mexico) A party.^[4][1]
4. (Mexico, Central America, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Ecuador) A problem, a row or fuss.^[18][19][1]

Adjective

1. (vulgar) drunk, or high on a drug: Llegó pedo a la boda.^[4][1]

Word family

• pedorro
• pedorrero
• pedorrera
• pedorreta
• empedarse

Related words

• peer
• petardo
• Latin pēditum
• Portuguese peido
• Catalan pet

Usage notes

Pedo de lobo is the puffball, also called bejín.^[4] In the Río de la Plata al pedo means “in vain” and en pedo “drunk”.^[17][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 458
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. peer
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. pedo
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. pēditum
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 4896
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. peditum
8. ^ a b c Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. peu
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. pet
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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. pedo
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 182
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 652
14. ^ a b 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. 6, 482
15. ^ 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, p. s.v. pedo
16. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pedo
17. ^ a b c Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1283
18. ^ 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. pedo
19. ^ 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. pedo
20. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. pedo
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 805