pesar

Forms

pesar (first-person singular present peso, first-person singular preterite pesé, past participle pesado)^[1] Old Spanish forms include pesa, pesaua, pesasse and pesarie.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish pesar, inherited from Latin pēnsō (“to weigh”), the intensive of pendō (“to weigh; to hang”).^[4][5][6][1] The noun pesar “grief” is the infinitive used as a noun, already in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[4][5]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese pesar, Galician pesar, Catalan pesar, Occitan pesar, French peser, Italian pesare and Romanian păsa.^[7][1][8] The impersonal use “it grieves me” is shared by Romanian, Italian, Old French, Occitan, Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese, and Spanish and Campidanese Sardinian also made a noun of it.^[7] Latin /ns/ was reduced to /s/, as in mesa from mēnsa.^[9] The verb pensar “to think” is a semi-learned outcome of the same Latin word, from the idea of weighing the pros and cons.^[10][1][8] peso continues pēnsum (“amount of wool to be spun”), which in Vulgar Latin took the general sense of weight.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds verb and noun in the earliest texts, the Cantar de mio Cid among them.^[4][5] The Cid uses the verb for “to weigh” (mucho es pesado) and impersonally for “to grieve”: mucho pesa a los de Teca “it grieves those of Teca greatly”.^[11] The noun occurs there too, as in ningún pesar “no grief”, and so does a pesar de “against the will of” (line 3441).^[11]

Semantic evolution

The physical and the moral senses run side by side from the start.^[11][12] In Berceo the verb means “to displease” and the noun “grief, offence, harm”.^[9] In Alfonso X's prose the noun is grief, a word or deed that causes sorrow, and in a pesar de, “against the will of”: a grand pesar della.^[12] Nebrija (c. 1495) gives the noun the senses “repentance” and “displeasure”, and Covarrubias explains it as a sadness that weighs down the spirit.^[13][14]

Autoridades records the noun for grief and for sorrow for sins, and a pesar as an adverbial phrase “against someone's will”, extended to “in spite of the force of things”.^[15] In 1884 the Academy noted that a pesar takes de except before a possessive (a pesar tuyo).^[16] The modern dictionaries add the use of a computer file, which “weighs” the memory it takes up.^[6] In Colombia and Venezuela pesar is to sell meat to the public, and in Honduras also to slaughter cattle.^[17][18]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has the verb, the noun and a pesar de.^[4][11]
• 1141–1235 – the Fuero de Madrid, in a 13th-century copy: Todos los pesos de la uilla, del oro pesen.^[3]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar: Esau ovo grant pesar on hearing his father.^[3]
• 1220–1250 – first record of pesadumbre.^[5]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General estoria has a grand pesar della.^[12]
• 1490 – first record of pesa.^[5]
• 1495 – Nebrija records contrapesar.^[5][4]
• 1521 – the first record in the Americas, in Cuba: me pesa mortalmente.^[19]
• early 17th century – first record of pésame and pesadilla.^[5]
• 1599 – first record of pesaroso, in Mateo Alemán; the BDELC dates it 1605.^[4][5]
• 1884 – the Academy notes the construction a pesar de / a pesar tuyo.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To weigh: to find the weight of something with scales or a similar instrument: Pesó las patatas en la báscula.^[6][1]
2. (transitive) To consider or examine the reasons for something carefully, to ponder.^[6][1]
3. (transitive, mathematics) To weight, ponderar.^[6]
4. (intransitive) To have weight; to weigh a given amount: La maleta pesa veinte kilos.^[6]
5. (intransitive) To be heavy; of a person or thing, to carry weight, to be highly valued.^[6][1]
6. (intransitive) Of an event: to cause regret or sorrow: Me pesa no haberte llamado.^[6]
7. (intransitive) Of a reason or motive: to influence the mind.^[6]
8. (intransitive, computing) Of a file: to take up memory on a device.^[6]

Noun

1. grief, sorrow or distress felt within.^[20][1]
2. A word or deed that causes sorrow or displeasure.^[20][12]
3. Regret, repentance for sins or for a wrong done.^[20][15]
4. a pesar de: “in spite of”, against someone's will or against the resistance of things: a pesar del frío.^[15][12][1]

Word family

• pesada
• pesado
• pesadumbre
• pesaroso
• apesarar
• repesar
• sopesar
• pesadilla
• pésame
• contrapesar
• pesantez

Related words

• peso
• pesa
• pensar
• Latin pēnsō
• Portuguese pesar

Usage notes

A pesar de takes de before a noun or a clause (a pesar de que llovía), but a possessive follows without it: a pesar mío, a pesar tuyo.^[16][21] A pesar de los pesares means “in spite of everything”.^[20] Other set phrases are pese a “despite” and mal que me pese “however much I dislike it”.^[6][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. pesar
3. ^ 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. pesar
4. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 503
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pesar
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. pesar
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. pensare
8. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4924
9. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 583
10. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pensar
11. ^ a b c d Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 387
12. ^ a b c d e 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. pesar
13. ^ 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. pesar
14. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1, 1210
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 240
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 822
17. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 646
18. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. pesar
19. ^ 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. pesar
20. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. pesar
21. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 377