relevar

Forms

relevar (first-person singular present relevo, first-person singular preterite relevé, past participle relevado)^[1] Old Spanish also has present forms with the diphthong, rrelieua, relievo, rrelieues.^[2] The Celestina twice uses relieva, conjugated like the noun relieve;^[3] Román considers it an old usage, not a separate verb.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin relevō (“to raise; to relieve of a burden”), formed of re- and levō (“to lighten, raise”).^[4][5][6][7] The Latin verb is itself derived from levis (“light”), the source of leve.^[5] Corominas treats the word under llevar, the inherited outcome of the simple verb, and dates the learned verb from the mid-15th century.^[4][5]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese relevar, Catalan rellevar, French relever and Italian rilevare.^[8][1] In Catalan the initial ⟨ll⟩ comes from the influence of the simple verb llevar.^[9] The French verb may be a formation in French, re- and lever, as much as a borrowing from Latin.^[10] Portuguese has the popular outcome relvar (“to cover with grass”);^[11][12][1] Corominas, cited by Houaiss, connects it with the Leonese ralbar (“to give land its first ploughing”), both from the same Latin verb.^[11][12][1]

The noun relieve belongs to the family but not to the verb: Corominas takes it from French relief in the old sense “leftovers of a meal”, and the sense of art from Italian rilievo.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is in the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, known from an early 15th-century copy): Non es pora varón el mucho relevar.^[13] The DEMel also lists the participle relevada in Alfonso X's Siete Partidas (1256–1265).^[2] The first record in a document without a later copy is from the Aljama of Zaragoza in 1331, where members of the community puedan seer releuados en lures cabeças “may be relieved in their heads”, that is, of a charge assessed per head.^[13]

Semantic evolution

In 14th-century Aragonese texts the verb already means “to relieve of a burden” and “to relieve of an office” (Fernández de Heredia, 1376–1396), and also keeps the Latin sense “to raise”: in the Crónica de Morea a fallen knight cannot releuar himself, and in Leomarte (c. 1350) Hercules has the temples rreleuar, perhaps “rebuilt”.^[13] Rebuilding is one of the verb's Medieval Latin senses.^[14] In the Americas from 1527 on it is used for relieving the Indians of labour and service.^[15]

Covarrubias (1611) defines it as lightening burdens or obligations.^[16] Autoridades lists making in relief, relieving of a burden, helping, and absolving or excusing.^[17] The military sense, one soldier taking the place of another, enters the Academy's dictionary in 1817; in 1843 it is relieving a sentry, and after 1869 it extends to replacing any person in a post.^[18][19][20] Baralt (1855) condemned as a Gallicism its use for “to point out the faults of a work”.^[21] Today the main senses are replacing someone in a task or post and relieving or dismissing someone from a duty or office.^[22][23]

Timeline

• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre (in an early 15th-century copy) has relevar.^[13]
• 1256–1265 – Alfonso X's Siete Partidas has relevada.^[2]
• 1331 – the first record without a later copy, in a document of the Aljama of Zaragoza.^[13]
• 1376–1396 – Fernández de Heredia uses releuado for being relieved of a charge.^[13]
• mid-15th century – Corominas's first record, the Crónica de Juan II.^[4][5]
• 1527 – the first record from the Americas, in Nicaragua.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as lightening burdens or obligations.^[16]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds the military sense of one soldier replacing another.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, Latin relevare.^[24]

Meanings

Verb

1. To make something in relief (relieve).^[6][23]
2. To relieve someone of a burden or charge, or of a post or office; also used reflexively: Lo relevaron del mando tras la derrota.^[6][22]
3. To help or remedy (remediar).^[6]
4. To absolve, forgive or excuse.^[6]
5. To exalt or praise something.^[6][23]
6. To take the place of a person, animal or thing in a task or function; to replace.^[6][22]
7. (military) To change a sentry (centinela) or a body of troops on guard or garrisoning a post.^[6]
8. (sculpture, intransitive) Of a figure: to stand out from the plane.^[6]

Word family

• relevo
• relevante
• relevación

Related words

• llevar
• levantar
• leve
• relieve
• Latin relevō
• Portuguese relvar

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
3. ^ a b Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 66
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 731
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. llevar
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. relevar
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. relevare
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. rellevar
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. relever
11. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. relvar
12. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2882
13. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
14. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. relevare
15. ^ 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
16. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1254
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 558
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra
21. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 603
22. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial
23. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 916