rumor

Forms

rumor m (plural rumores)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin rūmor (“noise; common talk, rumour”), a learned word.^{[2][3][4][1][5]} Corominas places it beside ruido, which comes from the same Latin root.^[2][3] The inherited forms of the Latin word are Catalan remor, Old French rimur and Old Occitan rimor, and Aragonese has remor (“murmur”).^[6][7][8] Portuguese rumor has the learned form too.^[9]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *roumōs- and, with a question mark, Proto-Indo-European *h₃re/ouH-mo- (“roaring”), from the root of Ancient Greek ὠρύομαι (ōrúomai, “to howl”) and of Sanskrit and Old Church Slavonic verbs for “to roar”.^[10] Wiktionary gives the root as *h₃rewH- (“to shout, roar”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the word first in the Marqués de Santillana, and then in Alfonso de Palencia.^[2] The CDH has earlier examples in the Aragonese works of Juan Fernández de Heredia (1376–1396), where it means “uproar, tumult”: Discordias et rumores esdeuenidos entre los romanos “discords and tumults that arose among the Romans”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 defines it as what is said not openly but spread secretly among the people, and the Diccionario de Autoridades adds a soft, gentle sound.^[12][13] Terreros also records the senses “quarrel, tumult” and “vague news”.^[14] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 still labels the soft sound as poetic.^[15] In 1884 it gave the three modern senses: talk that goes round among the public, a confused noise of voices, and a vague, dull, continuous noise.^[16] American texts of the 16th century use it mainly for the noise of people, as in el gran rumor de la gente y alboroto (Tierra Firme, 1534).^[17]

Timeline

• 1376–1396 – rumores “tumults” in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Aragonese translation of Orosius.^[11]
• c. 1440 – first record according to Corominas, in Santillana.^[3][2]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin dictionary glosses Latin rumor as fama de nuevas “report of news”.^[18]
• 1534 – first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as talk spread secretly.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the three modern senses.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A rumour, unconfirmed news that goes round among people: Corre el rumor de que van a cerrar la fábrica.^[4][19][1]
2. A confused noise of voices: Desde el patio llegaba un rumor de conversaciones.^[4][19]
3. A vague, dull, continuous noise; a murmur: el rumor del río.^[4][1]

Word family

• rumorear
• rumorología
• rumoroso

Related words

• ruido
• Latin rumor
• Catalan remor
• French rumeur

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ruido
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ruido
4. ^ a b c d 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. rumor
5. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. rumor
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7441
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. rumor
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. rumeur
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2971
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. rumor
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. 1274
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 655
14. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 406
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 775
16. ^ 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. 946
17. ^ 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. rumor
18. ^ 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. rumor
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rumor