raíz

Forms

raíz f (plural raíces)^[1] Old Spanish texts mostly write rayz, also raiz, rrayz, rrays and the plural rayzes.^[2] Berceo still has the older form radiz once, beside raíz.^[3] The stress ráiz (and réiz) is found in some Spanish writers of the 17th–19th centuries and is widespread in popular speech in the Americas.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish rayz, inherited from Latin rādīx (“root”).^[3][4][5][1] Berceo uses the modern form but in one poem still the older form radiz.^[3]

The Latin word is inherited by all the Western Romance languages: Portuguese raiz, Galician raíz, Asturian raíz, Aragonese radiz, Catalan rel, Occitan raitz, Old French raïz and Italian radice.^[3][6][1] Catalan now says arrel, with the ⟨a⟩ of the feminine article fused to the noun.^[7] The Old French word was replaced by French racine and survives only in the compound raifort “horseradish”.^[3][8]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *wrādīks and Proto-Indo-European *wréh₂ds.^[1] De Vaan reconstructs the Proto-Indo-European word as *ur(e)h₂-d-iH- “root”, and compares Welsh gwraidd “roots”, Ancient Greek ῥάδιξ (rhádix, “branch, twig”), Old English wyrt and Old Norse rót.^[9] The English word radish has the same Latin source.^[1] Corominas calls Ancient Greek ῥίζα (rhíza, “root”), from which the learned rizoma was formed, a synonym of the Latin word and related to it.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to a charter of 1207 and to Berceo.^[3][4] The Fazienda de Ultra Mar, dated c. 1200 and known from a 13th-century copy, has it in the sense “root of a tree”: A la rayz daquel arbor estava Abraam “Abraham stood at the foot of that tree”.^[10] Already in the Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250) it also means landed property: Que ninguno non pueda uender rayz alos freyres “that no one may sell land to the friars”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the prose of Alfonso X the word means the root of a plant, landed property (muebles & rayzes “movable goods and land”), the lower part of a thing and the origin from which something comes.^[11] The plural raízes for real estate, as opposed to movable goods, is in Juan Ruiz, and Nebrija has bienes raízes.^[3] Records from the Americas start in 1535, when edible roots of Santo Domingo are compared with melons.^[12]

The figurative senses “hidden part from which the visible part comes”, “foot of a thing” and “origin” are in the Academy's 19th-century dictionaries, which also define a farm, a vineyard or a house as raíz.^[13] Salvá adds the arithmetical sense, the number that multiplied by itself gives a quantity.^[14] The Academy gave the Latin etymology and a botanical definition in 1899.^[15] Today the word is also the lexical morpheme of a family of words in grammar and the root of an equation in mathematics.^[5] In the interior of Mexico raíz alone meant the sweet potato.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy) speaks of the root of a tree.^[10]
• 1207 – a charter, the date Corominas gives.^[3][4]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita uses rayz for landed property.^[10]
• c. 1230–1250 – Berceo writes raíz and once still radiz.^[3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of the root of a tree and of the base of a star figure.^[11]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz uses the plural for real estate.^[3]
• 1535 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[12]
• 1846 – Salvá records the arithmetical sense.^[14]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin radix.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. root: the part of a plant that usually grows down into the soil, holds the plant in place and takes up water and nutrients: Las raíces del olivo llegan muy hondo.^[5][1]
2. (usually in the plural) real estate: land, a farm or a building; see bienes raíces.^[5]
3. The hidden part of something from which the visible part grows, as of a hair or a nail.^[5][1]
4. The lower part or foot of something.^[5]
5. (figurative) The cause or origin of something.^[5][1]
6. (anatomy) The part of a tooth set in its socket.^[5][1]
7. (grammar) The lexical morpheme shared by a family of words, such as am- in amar.^[5][1]
8. (mathematics) Each value of the unknown that satisfies an equation.^[5]
9. (mathematics) A quantity that multiplied by itself once or more gives a given number;^[1] raíz cuadrada “square root”, raíz cúbica “cube root”.^[5]

Word family

• enraizar
• raigambre
• raigón
• raicilla
• raizar

Related words

• arraigar
• arraigo
• radical
• radicar
• raigal
• erradicar
• rizoma
• Latin rādīx
• Portuguese raiz
• English radish

Usage notes

The locution a raíz de means “as a result of, right after”, and de raíz and cortar de raíz mean “completely, from the root”.^[1] The plural is raíces, with ⟨c⟩ before ⟨e⟩.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. raíz
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 755
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. raíz
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. raíz
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7000
7. ^ 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. 1, 414
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. raifort
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. raíz
11. ^ 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. raíz
12. ^ 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. raíz
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 653
14. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 910
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 839
16. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 913