podar

Forms

podar (first-person singular present podo, first-person singular preterite podé, past participle podado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish podar, inherited from Latin putō (“to clean; to prune”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas notes that the verb was inherited by all the western Romance languages except French.^[2] The same Latin verb gave Portuguese podar, Catalan podar, Old Occitan podar, Italian potare and Sardinian pudare.^[5]

In Latin the verb meant “to make clean or tidy”, in farming “to prune trees and vines” (Cato, Virgil, Columella), and figuratively “to settle (an account), reckon, think”.^[6][7] De Vaan takes the adjective putus (“pure, genuine”) as the base of the family and the pruning sense as the original one, from which “to reckon” developed.^[8] He traces it to *puto- (“cut off, clean”) and *pHu-tó-, leaving open which laryngeal the root had.^[8] Wiktionary also derives the verb from the adjective, and calls the root of the adjective uncertain.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record of the verb is a document of 1235 published in Menéndez Pidal's Documentos lingüísticos; the agent noun podador “pruner” is older, in a Mozarabic document of 1213.^[2][3] The DEMel lists podar in a document of 1125 from León and Castile.^[9] The sense was from the start the farming one, pruning vines and trees.^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

Juan Ruiz uses the verb, and Alfonso de Palencia and Nebrija record it;^[2][11][12] Nebrija gives podar vides o arboles “to prune vines or trees” for Latin puto, and podazón for the pruning season.^[2][11][12] The pruning hook was foz podadera in the Libro de Alexandre, later shortened to podadera.^[2][3]

The Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as cutting the superfluous branches of trees and plants so that they bear fruit more strongly, said mostly of vines, and quotes a moral image from the Bocados de oro: Cosa fea es que podemos de nuestras viñas la rama seca, y non podemos de nuestras ánimas la superfluidad de las cobdicias “it is shameful that we prune the dry branch from our vineyards and do not prune the excess of greed from our souls”.^[10] In 1846 Domínguez found the figurative use rare and in poor taste;^[13][14] Echegaray in 1887 already gave podar las malas costumbres “to prune bad habits”.^[13][14] The DLE now has the figurative sense of cutting from something the parts judged unnecessary, and Moliner extends it to cutting offices or staff to save money.^[4][15]

In the Americas the verb is recorded in Santo Domingo in 1548, and Molina's Mexican vocabulary of 1571 has podar with podadera, podadura and chapodar.^[16]

Timeline

• 1125 – the DEMel's earliest record, in a document from León and Castile.^[9]
• 1213 – podador in a Mozarabic document.^[2][3]
• 1235 – first record of the verb, in a document of Menéndez Pidal's collection.^[2][3]
• c. 1250 – hoz podadera “pruning hook” in the Libro de Alexandre.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives podar and podazón.^[11][12]
• 1513 – the noun poda in Herrera's Agricultura general.^[2][3]
• 1548 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it and names the podadera.^[17]
• 1737 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it, chiefly of vines.^[10]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, Latin putare.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. To prune: to cut away the superfluous branches of trees, vines and other plants so that they grow more vigorously: En febrero podamos los manzanos del huerto.^[4][1][15]
2. (figurative) To cut out of something the parts considered unnecessary or harmful; to trim: El editor podó el informe de detalles inútiles.^[4][15]

Word family

• podador
• poda
• podadera
• podón

Related words

• amputar
• chapodar
• apodar
• computar

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 585
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. podar
4. ^ 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. podar
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6869
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. puto
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. podar
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 307
11. ^ a b c Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 398
12. ^ 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. podar
13. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1395
14. ^ a b Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 867
15. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. podar
16. ^ a b 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. podar
17. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1220
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 792