posar

posar¹ to rest, lodge, alight

Pronunciation

• /poˈsaɾ/, [poˈsaɾ]^[1]

Forms

posar (first-person singular present poso, first-person singular preterite posé, past participle posado)^[1]

Etymology

The word for “to rest, to lodge” is inherited from Late Latin pausare (“to cease, halt, rest”), from pausa (“halt, pause”), a loan from Ancient Greek παύω (paúō, “to stop, make cease”) or from one of its derivatives.^[2][3][4] It is uncertain whether the Latin verb was formed from the noun παῦσις (paûsis, “stopping”) or from ἔπαυσα (épausa), the aorist of the Greek verb.^[2] The learned doublet is pausar.^[3][1]

The same verb is Portuguese pousar, Galician pousar, Asturian posar, Catalan posar, Occitan pausar, French poser and Italian posare.^[5][6] In Catalan and Occitan it replaced pōnō (“to put”), which Spanish kept as poner.^[2][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds it from the beginnings of the language, in a charter of 1129.^[2][3] The Cantar de mio Cid uses it often for halting at the end of a day's march to eat and sleep, for camping, and for taking lodging: posaré a San Seruán “I shall lodge at San Servando”.^[8][2] Once it means “to sit”: yruan posar en vn escaño “they went to sit on a bench”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Berceo uses it for “to rest” and often for “to sit”, a sense Nebrija still gives (posar assentarse) and which Juan de Valdés in the 16th century called plebeian; it survives in the Alto Aragón.^[2][9] Alfonso X's Lapidario already applies it to birds alighting.^[10] Covarrubias explains it as resting because a man sets down the load he carries, whence posada “inn”.^[11]

The Academy's sense “to dwell” is marked obsolete;^[12] Corominas thinks it never existed and arose from a misreading of Berceo.^[4][2] The reflexive for particles settling in a liquid entered the Academy's dictionary in 1884, and the DLE now also applies the verb to aircraft and spacecraft landing.^[12][4] In Asturias ¡posá, galanes! is said to a swarm of bees to make it settle in a hive.^[2]

Timeline

• 1129 – first record, in a charter.^[2][3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses it for lodging, camping and sitting.^[8][13]
• c. 1230 – Berceo uses it for “to rest” and “to sit”.^[2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it of birds alighting.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives posar en posada and posar assentarse.^[14][9]
• 1529 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as setting down a load to rest.^[11]
• 1737 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives lodging, resting and a hawk alighting.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy adds the settling of a liquid's sediment.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To put down a load in order to rest.^[4]
2. To place gently: La enfermera posó el vaso sobre la mesilla.^[4][17]
3. (intransitive) To lodge, stay at an inn or a private house.^[4][1]
4. To rest, sit.^[4]
5. (also reflexive) Of a bird or other flying animal, or of an aircraft or spacecraft: to alight, land: Un mirlo se posó en la antena.^[4]
6. (obsolete) To dwell.^[4]
7. (reflexive) Of particles in a liquid: to settle at the bottom.^[4]
8. (reflexive) Of dust: to settle on things or on the ground.^[4]

Word family

• posada
• poso
• aposentar
• reposar
• posavasos
• posadero
• posaderas

posar² to pose

Pronunciation

• /poˈsaɾ/, [poˈsaɾ]^[1]

Forms

posar (first-person singular present poso, first-person singular preterite posé, past participle posado)^[1]

Etymology

The word for “to pose” is borrowed from French poser.^[4][18][17] The French verb, earlier pausar, continues the same Late Latin pausare, which in Gallo-Romance took over the sense of pōnō (“to put”) under the influence of its participle positus.^[19][7] The DCECH and the BDELC do not treat this sense.^[2][3] Catalan has the same loan, Catalan posar.^[20]

Semantic evolution

Alemany's dictionary of 1917 records “to serve as a model”, among painters and sculptors, as a sense of the inherited verb.^[21] The Academy now gives it a separate entry from French.^[4][18] Segura Munguía also records “to adopt studied or affected attitudes”, the sense of the noun pose, itself from French.^[22][23]

Timeline

• 1917 – Alemany records “to serve as a model” among painters and sculptors.^[21]
• 2001 – the Academy's dictionary has a separate posar from French poser.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. To pose: to hold a position in order to be photographed or portrayed, or as a model for a painter or sculptor: Posó toda la tarde para el escultor.^[4][17][24]
2. To adopt studied or affected attitudes.^[22]