quemar

Forms

quemar (first-person singular present quemo, first-person singular preterite quemé, past participle quemado)^[1] The Glosas Silenses spell the participle kematu, and the Fuero de Usagre has kemen.^[2][3] Western Leonese texts such as the Leonese manuscript of the Libro de Alexandre write queimar, the form of Galician and Portuguese.^[2] Upper Aragonese, from Bielsa to Echo, says cremar, as Catalan does, and the form occurs once in the Libro de Apolonio.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish quemar, inherited from Vulgar Latin *caimāre, which Corominas explains as a change of cremō (“to burn”) under the influence of the late Greek medical term κάϊμα (káïma, “burn, burning heat”), from καίω (kaíō, “to burn”).^[2][4][1] Greek physicians, common in the West in late antiquity, used the noun for the cautery, and Corominas supposes that the learned word spread from medicine into common speech.^[2] The DLE derives the verb simply from the Latin verb, and Moliner gives the blend only with a question mark.^[5][6]

Corominas rejects a direct descent from the Latin verb on phonetic grounds: the loss of the first /r/ is hard to explain, Castilian never shows a diphthong ⟨ie⟩ from the short /e/, and Galician-Portuguese ⟨ei⟩ points to a base with /ai/.^[2][4] Meyer-Lübke compared the Greek forms, and a glossary known from a 10th-century manuscript, which Corominas thinks was compiled in Spain, has the glosses ⟨chaima⟩ and ⟨chaimata⟩ (“heat”, “heats”).^[2] García de Diego allows either the classical verb or the blended form as the source.^[7]

The same verb is Portuguese queimar and Galician queimar, while Catalan cremar, Aragonese cremar and Occitan cremar keep the Latin form.^[2][7] Judeo-Spanish has Ladino kemar.^[1]

The classical verb has no sure etymology: de Vaan finds a link with carbō (“charcoal”) possible in theory, and compares the Celtic words for “beer” from *kormi-.^[8] Wiktionary mentions a possible root *kerh₃- (“to burn”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Glosas Silenses of the late 10th century translate the Latin phrase igni comburatur “let it be burnt with fire” as kematu siegat “burnt be it”.^[2][4] Among the earliest texts in the CDH is the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), where Judah orders of Tamar Sacadla fuera e sea quemada “bring her out and let her be burnt”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

From the start the verb meant destroying by fire, and Berceo, Juan Ruiz and Juan Manuel use it often.^[2] Leonese documents of 1251 and 1267 already use it intransitively for “to burn, be on fire”, the usual sense of Catalan cremar.^[2] In the prose of Alfonso X it also means “to heat”, “to sting” (of something hot or sharp) and “to sear, mark” (of something caustic).^[10]

Autoridades adds “to be too hot” and the burning of the summer sun.^[11] The Academy's dictionaries list “to parch plants” (with frost or heat), “to sting the mouth” and, figuratively, “to sell off cheaply”; in 1843 they add the reflexive senses “to grow impatient” and “to be close to guessing”, and the proverb quien se quemare, que sople.^[12][13] The figurative quemarse “to fly into a rage” is found as a mocked vulgarism in Quevedo.^[2]

Modern colloquial senses include “to squander” and “to wear someone out in a post”.^[5] In the Americas the verb means “to expose someone” in Cuba and the River Plate, “to wound with a firearm” in Argentina and Uruguay, and “to fail an examinee” in the Dominican Republic.^[14]

Timeline

• late 10th century – the Glosas Silenses gloss with kematu siegat.^[2][4]
• 1157 – the DEMel's first dated record, in Navarrese documents.^[15]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy) uses quemada.^[9]
• 1202 and 1219 – charters in Oelschläger's list show the form quemar.^[2]
• 1220–1250 – the derivative quemante is first recorded.^[4]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the verb for burning and for searing.^[10]
• 1251 and 1267 – intransitive use in Leonese documents.^[2]
• 1490 – quema and quemazón are first recorded, and quemadura follows in 1495.^[4]
• 1535 – first record in the Americas, in Peru.^[16]
• 1737 – requemar is first recorded.^[4]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin cremare.^[17]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also reflexive) To burn, destroy or consume by fire: Quemaron los papeles viejos en el patio.^[5][1]
2. (transitive) To damage with heat, an electric current or a corrosive substance.^[5]
3. (transitive) Of something hot, spicy or stinging: to give a burning feeling: Este chile quema la boca.^[5][1]
4. (transitive) Of heat or frost: to parch or kill a plant.^[5]
5. (transitive) Of the sun: to sunburn or tan the skin.^[5][1]
6. (transitive, also reflexive) To spoil food by cooking it too long or too fiercely.^[5]
7. (intransitive) To be very hot: No toques la sartén, que quema.^[1][11]
8. (colloquial) To sell something off for less than it is worth; to squander money.^[5]
9. (colloquial, also reflexive) To make someone impatient or annoyed.^[5]
10. (colloquial) To wear someone out, leaving them unfit to carry on in a job or office.^[5]
11. (computing) To burn a CD or DVD.^[1][18]
12. (Cuba, Argentina, Uruguay) To expose someone, show them up.^[14]
13. (Argentina, Uruguay) To shoot and wound someone.^[14]
14. (Dominican Republic) Of a teacher: to fail a student.^[14][18]

Word family

• quema
• quemadura
• quemante
• quemazón
• requemar
• resquemar
• quemacocos
• quemadero
• quemador

Related words

• crematorio
• Latin cremō
• Portuguese queimar
• Catalan cremar

Usage notes

The adverbial phrase a quemarropa “point-blank” is a compound of the verb.^[19] Set phrases with the verb include quemar las naves “to burn one's boats” and quemarse las pestañas “to study hard”.^[1][20]

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 j k l m n o Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 714
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. s.v. quemar
4. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. quemar
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. quemar
6. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. quemar
7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cremare
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. cremō
9. ^ 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. quemar
10. ^ 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. quemar
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 463
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 721
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 603
14. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. quemar
15. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. quemar
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. quemar
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. 887
18. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. quemar
19. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 177
20. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (2001), Diccionario breve de mexicanismos, México: Academia Mexicana / Fondo de Cultura Económica, p. 185