saber

Forms

saber (first-person singular present sé, first-person singular preterite supe, past participle sabido)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sapiō (“to taste; to be wise, know”).^[2][3][4][1] In Latin the verb usually referred to taste, but the comic poets already used it for “to have sense, know what one is about”, which made the step to the sense of sciō (“to know”) easy.^[2] The new verb replaced the old one from the beginning in every Romance language except Romanian and Sardinian.^[2][5] Spanish, like Italian and the other Ibero-Romance languages, also kept the original sense “to taste of”.^[2][6]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese saber, Galician saber, Catalan saber (also sebre), Occitan saber, French savoir and Italian sapere; the Pyrenean dialects of Aragon have Aragonese saper.^[7][1] The first person ⟨sé⟩ goes back, as in other Romance languages, to /ˈsajo/, of unclear origin, and the subjunctive ⟨sepa⟩ shows metathesis, from the Latin subjunctive ⟨sapiam⟩ through /ˈsajpa/.^[1]

The Latin verb goes back to *sapjō and *seh₁p- (“to notice”); de Vaan reconstructs an i-present *sh₁p-i-, the LIV a ye-present.^[8][1] Its cognates include Old Saxon ansebbian (“to notice”) and Old High German intseffen (“to notice, taste”).^[8][9]

The noun ⟨el saber⟩ “knowledge” is the infinitive used as a noun.^[10][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is first recorded at the end of the 10th century in the Glosas Silenses.^[2][3] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) it already means “to have word of, know”, and the minstrel uses sabed to announce what he is about to tell: „sabet, mucho me plaze” “know that it pleases me greatly”.^[11][12] The noun saber “knowledge” appears in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar of the first half of the 13th century.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish already used the verb for knowing a fact and knowing how to do something;^[14] Alfonso X's prose used the noun for “knowledge” and, in the plural, for the sciences, with saberes liberales for the liberal arts.^[14] Nebrija gave both senses side by side: saber el manjar “of food, to have a taste”, and saber “to know”.^[2] Autoridades noted the irregular forms sepa and supe; the Academy's 1817 dictionary marked the plural saberes “sciences” as old.^[15][16]

Joined to an infinitive, the verb easily shifts its meaning, as it does in many languages.^[2] In Argentina, Ecuador, Peru and Central America saber + infinitive means “to be in the habit of”, like soler.^[17][18] English savvy (1785) is a West Indies pidgin borrowing of Spanish sabe (usted) “you know” or French savez-vous.^[19]

Timeline

• late 10th century – the Glosas Silenses.^[2][3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses saber “to know” and sabed to address its audience.^[11]
• c. 1180 – the Auto de los Reyes Magos: No sé quál es achesta strela “I don't know what star this is”.^[12]
• 1200–1250 – the noun saber “knowledge” in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[13]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X uses saberes for the sciences.^[14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives saber both as “to know” and as “to taste of”.^[2]
• 1515 – first record in the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[20]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades describes the noun and the irregular forms sepa, supe.^[15]
• 1785 – English savvy first recorded.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To know, have news or knowledge of something: Supimos la noticia ayer.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To be learned in a subject: Sabe tres idiomas.^[4]
3. (transitive) To know how to do something, have the skill for it: No sabe nadar.^[4][1]
4. (transitive) To be sure of a future event.^[4]
5. (intransitive, with de) To have news of someone or something; to hear from: Hace meses que no sé de él.^[4][1]
6. (intransitive) To be very shrewd.^[4]
7. (intransitive, with a) Of food and other things: to taste of: El agua sabe a cloro.^[4][1]
8. (intransitive) Of a thing: to produce a given effect on one's mind: me sabe mal “I am sorry, it bothers me”.^[4][1]
9. (Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, Central America, colloquial) To be in the habit of, like soler.^[17][1]

Noun

1. knowledge, learning: the body of knowledge gained by study or experience.^[4][1][6]
2. (obsolete) A science or field of learning.^[10]

Word family

• sabido
• sabedor
• sabiondo
• consabido
• resabio
• sabiduría
• sabelotodo
• sinsabor

Related words

• sabio
• sabor
• sapiencia
• insípido
• Latin sapiō
• English savvy

Usage notes

A saber introduces an explanation or a list: “namely”; it is also used like vete a saber “who knows”.^[4] The verb is irregular: sé, supe, sepa, sabré.^[15][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 111
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. saber
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. saber
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. saber
6. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. saber
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. sapere
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. sapiō
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. sapiō
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. 947
11. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 424
12. ^ 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. saber
13. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. saber
14. ^ a b c 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. saber
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 2
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 775
17. ^ 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. saber
18. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 727
19. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
20. ^ 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. saber