roer

Forms

roer (first-person singular present roo or roigo or royo, first-person singular preterite roí, past participle roído)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rōdō (“to gnaw”).^[2][3][1][4] The DÉRom dates the Spanish verb from about 1220.^[4]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese roer, Galician roer, Asturian royer, Old Catalan roure, Occitan roire, Old French rore, Italian rodere, Sardinian ròdere and Romanian roade.^[4][5]

De Vaan derives the Latin verb from Proto-Indo-European *Hreh₃d- (“to gnaw, furrow”) or from a variant of the root with initial w-;^[6][1] Latin rōstrum (“snout, beak”) is formed from it.^[6][1] He calls the root's further etymology uncertain: it may be the same as that of Sanskrit रदति (rádati, “digs, furrows”), or of the Germanic verb seen in Old English wrōtan (“to dig, root up”).^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's Breve diccionario dates the first record 1220–1250, and the DEMel's earliest are Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo (c. 1230) and the Libro de Alexandre.^[2][7] Alfonso X's prose uses it for gnawing and for wearing something away: in the Lapidario a stone powder makes a paste that no roye tinna “the moth does not gnaw”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's texts also have the sense “to torment” and, in the General Estoria (1280), roer los dientes “to grind one's teeth”.^[8] Covarrubias (1611) says the word properly belongs to mice and similar animals, and that by allusion it means to speak ill of one's neighbour; he records roerle los zancajos for petty fault-finding and róete esse huesso for a gift of no use.^[9] Cervantes uses it for a scruple that gnaws the conscience.^[10]

The Diccionario de Autoridades (1737) defines it as cutting small pieces off something with the teeth, stripping the meat left on a bone, and wearing something away little by little.^[11] The 1884 edition of the Academy's dictionary adds the beekeepers' sense, bees eating the queen cells after they have closed them, and the figurative “to torment inwardly”.^[12] The phrase hueso duro de roer “a hard nut to crack” is listed by Wiktionary.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1230 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo has the verb.^[7][2]
• 1250–1279 – the Lapidario of Alfonso X uses it for a moth eating cloth.^[8]
• 1280 – the General Estoria has roer los dientes “to grind one's teeth”.^[8]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin rodo, corrodo and arrodo; the derivative roedura is first recorded the same year.^[13][2]
• 1566 – the first record from the Americas, in Yucatán.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records roerle los zancajos “to pick at someone's faults”.^[9]
• 1737 – Autoridades defines it;^[11][2] roedor is first recorded the same year.^[11][2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, of an animal) To gnaw, cut food in small pieces with the teeth or similar mouthparts: Un ratón había roído el saco de harina.^[3][1]
2. (beekeeping) Of bees, to eat a queen cell after closing it.^[3]
3. To pick the meat left on a bone with the teeth.^[3][11]
4. To wear away or erode little by little: La humedad roía las paredes del sótano.^[3][1]
5. To torment someone inwardly and persistently: Lo roía la culpa desde aquel día.^[3][15]

Word family

• roedor
• roedura

Related words

• roso
• corroer
• erosión
• rostro
• Latin rōdō
• English rodent

Usage notes

The verb is irregular in the present: the first person singular is roo, roigo or royo, and the forms with ⟨y⟩ appear where an unstressed i stood between vowels (royendo, royeron).^[1][7] Hueso duro de roer is said of a difficult person or task.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. roer
3. ^ 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. roer
4. ^ a b c Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. roer
8. ^ a b c d 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. roer
9. ^ 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. 1269
10. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. s.v. roer
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 632
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 939
13. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 410
14. ^ 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. roer
15. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. roer