quebrar

Forms

quebrar (first-person singular present quiebro, first-person singular preterite quebré, past participle quebrado)^[1] Old Spanish also had crebar, in the Fuero de Navarra, the Gran Conquista de Ultramar and Aragonese proverbs; it survives in Aragonese and Galician.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish crebar, inherited from Latin crepō (“to crack, creak, burst”).^[2][4][5][1] The Old Spanish form took its modern shape by metathesis of the /r/.^[6][1][2] In Late Latin the verb already meant “to burst” in Augustine, and Prudentius used it for a sword breaking into pieces.^[2]

It survives in every Romance language: Portuguese quebrar, Catalan crebar, French crever, Italian crepare and Romanian crăpa.^[7][3] Corominas notes that only Portuguese and Spanish moved the /r/ and took the sense “to break”; the others keep the sense “to burst”.^[2][8]

Wiktionary calls the Latin verb imitative of harsh sounds and gives De Vaan's root *ḱrep- (“to rattle, crackle”).^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy): Apriessa cantan los gallos e quieren quebrar albores, “the cocks crow in haste and the dawn is about to break”.^[10][11] In the Cid it is intransitive, “to break, snap”, said of lances.^[11][2]

Semantic evolution

In the 12th and 13th centuries the verb was nearly always intransitive, as in Latin, and often kept the old sense “to burst”: in Berceo a hanged man bursts in the middle.^[2][10] The reflexive quebrarse appears in the 14th century in Juan Manuel, and the transitive use “to break something” is well established in Juan Ruiz; the BDELC dates “to break” from 1335.^[2][4] Alfonso X's Lapidario already says that glass vessels break near a certain stone.^[12]

Nebrija had “to break one's leg”, quebrar el crédito “to go bankrupt” and quebrado “ruptured”.^[2] Covarrubias in 1611 recorded the merchants' sense “to go bankrupt” and the proverb quiebra el hilo por lo más delgado “the thread breaks at its thinnest”.^[13] Corominas notes that the word is becoming old-fashioned in the city speech of Spain, but is still in full use in country speech and in the Americas.^[2] There it has colloquial senses such as “to kill” (Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala), “to fail (an exam)” (El Salvador, Venezuela) and “to crush” (Costa Rica).^[5][14]

Timeline

• 1102 – the derivative crepantar “to break” in a charter.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid: the dawn breaks, lances break.^[10][11]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has the form crebo.^[10]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario: glass vessels break.^[12]
• 1335 – the BDELC's date for the sense “to break”.^[4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin frango.^[15]
• 1509 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records quebrar among merchants for going bankrupt.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin crepare.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To break, to separate violently: Quebró el plato al fregarlo.^[5][1]
2. (transitive) To break a law or an obligation.^[5][1]
3. (transitive, also reflexive) To bend or twist, especially the body.^[5][1]
4. (transitive) To interrupt or hinder something not material.^[5]
5. (transitive) To temper or soften the force or harshness of something.^[5]
6. (transitive, also reflexive) To spoil or fade (ajar) the natural colour of the face.^[5]
7. (transitive) To overcome a material difficulty or an oppression.^[5]
8. (transitive, colloquial, Colombia, El Salvador, Guatemala) To kill.^[5][1]
9. (transitive, Costa Rica) To crush or grind (triturar).^[5]
10. (transitive, El Salvador, Venezuela) To fail an examinee.^[5]
11. (intransitive) Of a friendship: to break up or cool.^[5]
12. (intransitive) To give way, to weaken.^[5]
13. (intransitive) Of a thing: to stop, to cease to apply.^[5]
14. (intransitive) Of a business: to go bankrupt: La empresa quebró después de la crisis.^[1][13]

Word family

• quebradero
• quebradizo
• quebrado
• quebradura
• quiebra
• quiebro
• quebrantar
• resquebrar
• quebrada
• quebrador
• quiebre
• requebrar

Related words

• inquebrantable
• resquebrajar
• grieta
• Latin crepō
• Portuguese quebrar
• French crever

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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, 706
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1967
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. quebrar
5. ^ 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. quebrar
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. quebrar
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. crepāre
8. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 2, 1031
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ 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. quebrar
11. ^ a b c Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. quebrar
12. ^ a b 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. quebrar
13. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1240
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. quebrar
15. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 403
16. ^ 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. crebar
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 886