quejarse

Forms

quejarse (first-person singular present me quejo, first-person singular preterite me quejé, past participle quejado)^[1]

Etymology

It is the pronominal use of quejar, which is inherited from Old Spanish quexar, inherited from Vulgar Latin *quassiare (“to shatter”), a derivative of Latin quassō (“to strike violently; to shatter”).^[2][3][4][1] In Old Spanish the verb usually meant “to afflict, press hard”, close to the Latin sense;^[2][3] the pronominal form meant at first “to be afflicted, to grieve”, and only later “to complain”.^[2][3] Corominas credits Spitzer (1937) with solving the etymology.^[2]

Corominas rejects the other proposals: Diez's frequentative of queror (“to complain”), and forms derived from quaerō (“to seek”), cannot give Old Spanish ⟨x⟩, and Cornu's coaxō (“to croak”), accepted by Meyer-Lübke, does not fit the sense.^[2] García de Diego nevertheless derives the verb from *questiare, built on the participle of that verb.^[5]

The Latin verb is the frequentative of quatiō (“to shake”).^[6][7] The same Vulgar Latin verb is Portuguese queixar, Galician queixar and Asturian quexar.^[8][9][1] Catalan queixar-se is first recorded about 1550 and may have come from Old Spanish.^[10] The doublet cascar goes back to another derivative of the same Latin verb.^[1][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

When the Cid leaves a castle, moros e moras tomáronse a quexar, “the Moorish men and women began to lament” (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy).^[12][2] Corominas, following Menéndez Pidal, notes that their words hold no reproach, only grief.^[2] The Fuero Juzgo (c. 1254) already has the sense of complaining: duelesse & quexas de poco mal, “he grieves and complains of a small ill”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th and 14th centuries quexar was mostly transitive: pains or thirst “afflicted” a person.^[2][3] The reflexive “to complain, lament” is found now and then from the end of the 13th century, in the chronicles of Alfonso X, and becomes common in the 15th.^[3][2] Nebrija about 1495 equated quexarse with querellarse, “to bring a complaint”.^[14] Terreros noted that quejar without the pronoun had been used in the same sense.^[15]

Autoridades gave three senses: to voice pain or grief, to show resentment against someone, and to bring a legal complaint; it also recorded quejarse de vicio, “to complain without good reason”.^[16] The DLE keeps these senses, adds the expression of disagreement, and still lists the transitive quejar as a synonym of aquejar.^[4] In Argentina and Uruguay, quejarse a Magoya is to complain where nobody can help.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – tomáronse a quexar in the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy).^[12][2][3]
• 1220–1250 – the noun queja.^[3]
• c. 1254 – the Fuero Juzgo uses quexarse for complaining.^[13]
• c. 1270 – the derivative aquejar.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija equates quexarse with querellarse.^[14]
• c. 1550 – Catalan queixar-se is first recorded.^[10]
• late 16th century – the noun quejido.^[3]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records quejarse de vicio.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy derives quejarse from queja.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. To voice pain or grief; to moan, groan.^[4][1]
2. To show one's resentment against someone.^[4]
3. To complain, to express disagreement with something or someone: Los vecinos se quejan del ruido de la obra.^[4][1]
4. (law) To file a complaint, a querella.^[4]

Word family

• queja
• quejido
• quejoso
• quejumbroso
• aquejar

Related words

• quejazón
• quejicoso
• cascar
• Portuguese queixar

Usage notes

Quejarse de vicio is to complain without real cause.^[16] The verb takes de for the cause and a for the person complained to.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 709
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. quejar
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. quejar
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. *questiare
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. quassō
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2786
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. queixar
10. ^ a b 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. 6, 921
11. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 742
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. quejar
13. ^ 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. quejar
14. ^ a b 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. quejar
15. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 258
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 463
17. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. quejarse
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 887
19. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1397