plantar

Forms

plantar (first-person singular present planto, first-person singular preterite planté, past participle plantado)^[1] The inherited form llantar occurs in Old Spanish and is still used in Asturian.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin plantō (“to plant”), a semi-learned word.^[2][4] Wiktionary calls it a learned borrowing.^[1] The inherited form llantar is not unknown: Corominas finds it in a Castilian translation of about 1300, and it survives in Asturian and in place names such as ⟨Llantada⟩.^[2][5] Corominas classes the noun planta in the same way, because its ⟨pl⟩ was kept.^[2]

The same Latin verb gave Catalan plantar, French planter and Italian piantare, and in Galician-Portuguese chantar, now mostly replaced in Portuguese by prantar.^[6][2][5]

The Latin verb comes from planta (“sole of the foot; cutting, shoot”).^[7][1] Corominas follows Wartburg in taking the noun for the plant as a back-formation from the verb, which was itself made from the word for the sole of the foot.^[2] De Vaan reports the view that the noun for a shoot was back-formed from a verb meaning “to plant with the sole of the foot”, and derives the word for the sole from Proto-Indo-European *pl(e)h₂-nt-h₂- (“the flat one”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a charter of 1148.^[2] An early literary record is the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy): Conpeço Noe a labrar e plantó vinna “Noah began to till the soil and planted a vineyard”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In Alfonso X's prose the verb means to put plants in the ground, to plant a piece of land, and to found or establish something; the General Estoria (1280) has the inherited form, se llantara la sapiencia “wisdom will be planted”.^[3] Autoridades in 1737 added “to set something upright” (a cross, a pavilion) and “to place something where it is to be used”, as plantar la artillería.^[10] In the thieves' slang of 1609 plantar meant “to bury”.^[11]

The colloquial senses came later: the Academy's dictionary of 1884 has “deal (a blow)”, “put someone somewhere against their will” and “leave someone in the lurch”.^[12] Today the DLE adds “stand someone up”, “give up an activity” and the pronominal “dig one's heels in”.^[4] In Peru and Bolivia plantarse is said of an offender who mends his ways.^[13]

Timeline

• 1148 – first record, in a charter.^[2]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has Noah planting a vineyard.^[9]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita speaks of planting a vineyard.^[9]
• 1280 – the General Estoria has the inherited form llantar.^[3]
• 1518 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[14]
• 1569 – first record of trasplantar.^[2]
• 1609 – the thieves' slang sense “to bury”.^[11]
• 1737 – Autoridades derives it from Latin plantare.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary records the colloquial senses.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. To plant: to put a plant, cutting, tuber or bulb in the ground to take root: Plantamos tres olivos en el huerto.^[4][1]
2. To plant a piece of land with plants.^[4]
3. To set something upright in the ground, to fix it.^[4][1]
4. To found, establish.^[4]
5. (colloquial) To deal a blow; to plant a kiss.^[4][1]
6. (colloquial) To put someone somewhere against their will.^[4]
7. (colloquial) To jilt, leave someone to whom one had a commitment; to give up an activity or studies.^[4]
8. (colloquial) To stand up someone, leave them waiting: Me dejó plantado en la puerta del cine.^[4][1]
9. (colloquial) To tell someone home truths that leave them speechless.^[4]
10. (pronominal) To refuse to do something, to dig one's heels in;^[1] (card games) to stick.^[4][1]
11. (pronominal, colloquial) To plant oneself somewhere, stand firm; to get somewhere quickly.^[4][15]

Word family

• desplantar
• trasplantar
• plantación
• plantador
• plante
• replantar

Related words

• planta
• plantear
• suplantar

Usage notes

The adjective plantar “of the sole of the foot”, as in anatomy, is a separate word, taken from Latin plantāris;^[4][16] Vox dates the borrowing to the 19th century.^[4][16] The Academy's dictionary first listed it in 1884, with the wrong etymon plantare, corrected to plantaris in 1899.^[12][17] The phrase dejar plantado “to stand someone up” is common.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 572
3. ^ a b c 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. plantar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. plantar
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5093
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ 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. plantar
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 290
11. ^ 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. 193
12. ^ 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. 838
13. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. plantar
14. ^ 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. plantar
15. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. plantar
16. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. plantar
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 787