ruido

Forms

ruido m (plural ruidos)^[1] Old Spanish wrote roído, roydo or rroydo;^[2][3] ruydo and ruido are rarer in the medieval texts.^[2][3] Asturian has ruxíu and Sanabrian a form with the palatal consonant kept;^[3][4] Navarrese roido.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish roído, inherited from Latin rugītus (“roaring”), which in Late Latin had taken the sense “din, uproar”.^[3][5][6][1] In Latin the word was used almost always for the roar of a lion or other animal, but Saint Jerome uses it for the rumbling of the bowels, and the Peregrinatio Aetheriae for the clamour of a crowd, which shows the sense “din” or “tumult”.^[3] The Latin noun is formed from rūgiō (“to roar”) with the suffix -tus.^[1] De Vaan relates the verb to Ancient Greek ἐρεύγομαι (ereúgomai, “to roar”) and ὠρυγή (ōrugḗ, “roaring”), from a root Proto-Indo-European *(H)ru- (“to roar”) with different extensions in each branch.^[7] Wiktionary suggests *h₁rewg- (“to roar”).^[1]

The loss of the /g/ is regular in Castilian, and Corominas rejects Cornu's etymon ruditus (“braying”), since the velar consonant survives in Sanabrian and in Asturian ruxíu.^[3] Besides Portuguese ruído and Galician ruído, the word survives only in Bearnese and in Old French ruit and French rut “tumult; the bellowing of a stag in rut”.^[3] The French and Friulian words name the rutting season, while the Spanish and Portuguese ones mean “noise”.^[8] The Latin verb lived on in Old Spanish and Judeo-Spanish ruir (“to murmur, to make a noise”); the learned doublet rugir “to roar” is recorded from 1570, and rugido beside it.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has the word for a loud noise: antel roydo de atamores la tierra querie quebrar “at the noise of the drums the earth seemed about to break”.^[3][9] The first CDH hit without a later copy is in the Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223), on the rroydo of thunder.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages the word also meant “rumour, report”, in Berceo, and “quarrel, discord”, in a chronicle of about 1460.^[3] Alfonso X's Lapidario names a roydo in the head, a noise as an illness.^[10] Nebrija still wrote roido.^[11] Covarrubias derived it from Latin ruere “to fall”, or from a Hebrew word for wind, and the Diccionario de Autoridades repeated this.^[12][13] Autoridades defined it as a sound that jars on the ear, but also any sound, even a pleasant one, and as a lawsuit, quarrel or disturbance.^[13]

The Academy's 1884 edition added the figurative senses of a great show with no substance behind it and, in the cant of thieves, a ruffian.^[14] The DLE keeps the germanía sense as a man who trades in prostitutes, and has added the linguistic sense of interference in communication.^[6] Wiktionary also gives the sense of unwanted signal in a transmission.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – roydo de atamores in the Cantar de mio Cid, in a 14th-century copy.^[3][9]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo uses roydo for “rumour, report”.^[3]
• c. 1223 – rroydo of thunder in the Semejanza del mundo.^[9]
• c. 1460 – a chronicle uses roydo for “discord”.^[3]
• 1570 – the learned doublets rugir and rugido in Cristóbal de las Casas.^[3][5]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives ruido from Latin ruere.^[12]
• late 17th century – the derivative ruidoso.^[5]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin rugitus.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. noise: an inarticulate, usually unpleasant sound: No podía dormir por el ruido de la calle.^[6][1]
2. A quarrel, dispute, lawsuit or uproar.^[6][1]
3. A great show made over things of little importance; fuss.^[6][1]
4. Public stir caused by an event: La noticia hizo mucho ruido en el pueblo.^[6]
5. (linguistics) interference in a process of communication;^[6][1] (electronics) unwanted noise in a signal.^[6][1]
6. (germanía) A man who trades in prostitutes.^[6]

Word family

• ruidoso
• buscarruidos

Related words

• rugir
• rugido
• rumor
• Latin rugītus
• French rut

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. ruido
3. ^ 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. 5, 83
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. rugitus
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ruido
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. ruido
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. rut
9. ^ 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. ruido
10. ^ 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. ruido
11. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. ruido
12. ^ 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. 1273
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. ruido
14. ^ 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. 945