robar

Forms

robar (first-person singular present robo, first-person singular preterite robé, past participle robado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *raubare, a word that spoken Latin borrowed from Proto-Germanic *raubōną (“to plunder, snatch”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas holds that the loan was made early, through the Germanic mercenaries of the Roman Empire, because it is general from the first texts in all the western Romance languages but missing in Romanian and Sardinian, which were already cut off.^[2] Wiktionary names Frankish *raubōn as the source, and the Latin form is found in the Lex Salica.^[1] Medieval Latin texts write it with ⟨au⟩, ⟨o⟩ and ⟨u⟩.^[5]

The same word is Portuguese roubar, Catalan robar, Occitan raubar, Old French rober (now French dérober) and Italian rubare.^[2][6][7] The Germanic verb is also Old High German roubōn, German rauben and English reave.^[4][2][8] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *Hrewp- (“to snatch”).^[1]

Autoridades and the Academy's dictionary of 1884 still took it from Latin rapere (“to seize”).^[9][10] Covarrubias reports that Mariana counted it among the words of the Goths, but himself points to the Italian verb instead.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb first appears in the Cantar de mio Cid in its original sense “to plunder”: Esta albergada los de mio Cid luego la an robado “my Cid's men soon plundered this camp”.^[12][2] The poem also has robar el campo “to plunder the battlefield”.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Berceo already applies the verb to a thief outside war, to a church broken into and robbed.^[2] Until the classical language robar “to take by force” was kept apart from hurtar “to take by stealth”, a distinction that still holds in legal language and some popular speech.^[2] Autoridades, however, also admits “to take in any way”.^[2][9] Covarrubias in 1611 says the word means more than hurtar in amount and manner, and records robar corazones “to win everyone's affection”.^[11]

Autoridades adds the abduction of a woman, and the sense of a river carrying away its bank.^[9] In South America robarse algo means “to steal it”, especially in Colombia, Chile and Argentina.^[2] In Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua and El Salvador the verb can mean “to kidnap”.^[14] In Argentina and Uruguay it can mean “to beat an opponent easily”.^[15] The religious sense of arrobarse, “to be carried away in ecstasy”, appears at the end of the 16th century.^[3][2]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses it for plundering a camp.^[3][13]
• 1220–1250 – the nouns robo and robador are first recorded.^[3]
• 1254 – the Fuero Juzgo uses it for taking another's property.^[16]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin compilo and expilo for robbing with weapons.^[17]
• 1550 – first record from the Americas, in Panama.^[18]
• 1599 – arrobarse “to fall into ecstasy” is first recorded.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias sets it apart from hurtar.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary still derives it from Latin rapere.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To rob: to take what belongs to another by force or violence.^[4][1]
2. To steal, take what is another's in any way: Le robaron la cartera en el metro.^[4][1]
3. To abduct a woman, or (Cuba, Mexico, Central America) to kidnap anyone.^[4][14][1]
4. Of a river or current, to carry away part of the land beside it.^[4]
5. In card games and dominoes, to draw a card or tile from the pile.^[4][1]
6. To win someone's heart or attention: robar el corazón.^[4]
7. (Argentina, Uruguay) To beat an opponent with ease.^[15]

Word family

• robador
• robo
• arrobar
• arrobamiento
• arrobo

Related words

• ropa
• Portuguese roubar
• Catalan robar
• English rob

Usage notes

In legal Spanish robo, taking with force or violence, is still distinguished from hurto, taking by stealth.^[2][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 5, 35
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. robar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. robar
5. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2959
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. 7, 351
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 626
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 937
11. ^ 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. 1267
12. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. robar
13. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 423
14. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. robar
15. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. robar
16. ^ 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. robar
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 410
18. ^ 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. robar