peligro

Forms

peligro m (plural peligros)^[1] Old Spanish had periglo, still found in the 14th century, and perigro.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish periglo, inherited from Latin perīculum (“trial, test; danger”), by a semi-learned route.^[2][4][5][1] Wiktionary notes that a fully popular outcome would have been *perijo, and compares milagro.^[1]

Corominas explains the later forms by the dislike of early Castilian for the groups ⟨gl⟩ and ⟨cl⟩, which had disappeared from popular words: the old form became perigro, found in the Libro de Alexandre, and then the modern form by dissimilation of the two /r/.^[2] Both the old and the modern form occur in the manuscripts of Berceo.^[2]

García de Diego sets the learned Castilian forms beside Catalan perill, from the popular form Vulgar Latin periclum.^[6] The same Latin word is Portuguese perigo, Galician perigo, Asturian peligru, Occitan perilh, French péril and Italian pericolo.^[7][6][8]

The Latin noun first meant “trial, test”; it comes from the verb seen in experior (“to try”) and is related to perītus (“experienced”).^[9][2][10] Wiktionary tentatively traces it to Proto-Indo-European *perh₃- (“to go through, attempt”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is in La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), in Hezekiah's message: en atal peligro somos cumo la mugier que a ynfantar “we are in such danger as the woman about to give birth”.^[11] The Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) has the older form periglo.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X writes of a stone that lets a woman give birth sin peligro.^[12] Covarrubias defines it as a risk to life or property, with peligrar and peligroso.^[13] Autoridades adds the moral and spiritual danger of things not material, the phrase correr peligro, and a germanía sense “judicial torture” taken from Juan Hidalgo's vocabulary of 1609.^[14][15]

Today peligro also names a person or thing that is a danger: ese cruce es un peligro.^[16][17] In Puerto Rico it is a humorous word for animal dung in the street.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – first record, in La fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy).^[11]
• 1218–1250 – the older form periglo in the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes.^[11]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo has both periglo and peligro, and perigloso.^[4][2]
• 1240–1250 – the metathesised perigro in the Libro de Alexandre.^[2]
• 1323–1369 – periglo is still written in the Constituciones de Cartagena.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin periculum and discrimen.^[19]
• 1515 – first record in the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[20]
• 1609 – Juan Hidalgo records the germanía sense “judicial torture”.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as a risk to life or property.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. danger, peril: the imminent risk that something bad will happen: Su vida corre peligro.^[5][1]
2. A place, passage, obstacle or situation where the risk of harm increases.^[5]
3. A person or thing that is a danger.^[16][17]
4. (Puerto Rico, humorous) Animal dung on a street or path.^[18]

Word family

• peligroso
• peligrar

Related words

• perito
• experiencia
• pericia
• Latin periculum

Usage notes

Correr peligro is “to be in danger”, and fuera de peligro is said of a patient past the critical stage.^[5][16] Judeo-Spanish has peligro beside the Italianate perikolo.^[21]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 463
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. peligro
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. peligro
5. ^ 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. peligro
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. periculum
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6414
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2547
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. peligro
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. peligro
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. peligro
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. 1203
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 191
15. ^ a b Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 191
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. peligro
17. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. peligro
18. ^ a b Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. peligro
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 395
20. ^ 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. peligro
21. ^ Nehama, Joseph (1977), Dictionnaire du judéo-espagnol, Madrid: CSIC, p. s.v. peligro