sacudir

Forms

sacudir (first-person singular present sacudo, first-person singular preterite sacudí, past participle sacudido)^[1] Old Spanish also had sacodir and, with /ɡ/, sagudir and segudir, found in the Fuero Juzgo, in Leonese and Aragonese texts and in Juan Manuel.^[2][3][4] Asturian has secudir and zacutir.^[3][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish sacudir, earlier sacodir, inherited from Latin succutiō (“to toss up from below, shake”).^[2][5][6][1] The Latin verb is formed sub- (“under”) + quatiō (“to shake”).^[7][1]

The first vowel changed by dissimilation: it goes back to socodir, which gave the earlier form, and that gave the modern one.^[5][1] Corominas notes that the change of the Latin first syllable to ⟨sa-⟩ is common to all Ibero-Romance and must be old, since the frequentative succussō shows it too in Catalan sacsar.^[2] The forms with -g- in Leonese and Aragonese are put down by Castro to the influence of segudar (“to pursue”).^[2]

The Latin verb survives in all the Romance languages of Iberia and Gaul, in Sardinian and in Rhaeto-Romance;^[2] Portuguese sacudir is recorded from the 13th century.^[8]

De Vaan reconstructs the simple verb as *kwat-i-, perhaps from *(s)kuot-i-, and compares Old High German scutten (“to shake”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), where, after four kings are defeated, Lot is got back: sacudio a Loth so sobrino, “he got back Lot, his nephew”.^[10][4] Corominas's first record is Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo, where a prisoner asks how he can get out when he cannot shake the irons off himself.^[2][10] The Fueros of Zorita and Alcalá use the verb for a dog that snatches meat from a wolf.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th and 14th centuries the verb was used for shaking down fruit, of hunting birds shaking their necks and for snatching something away;^[2][11] Leonese texts have the sense “to seize, take away”.^[2][11] Nebrija gave it the Latin equivalents quatio and concutio.^[12] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as to strike or shake in the air, and the reflexive as to shake someone off by refusing what he asks.^[13] Timoneda used sacudirse for fighting with swords.^[2]

Autoridades in 1739 had shaking and beating to remove the dust, and the Academy in 1884 added striking someone and throwing something away.^[14][15] The DLE now also has “to shake (someone's feelings)” and, colloquially, “to hand over money”.^[6] In much of Spanish America sacudir is to dust a room.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar: sacudio a Loth “he got back Lot”.^[10]
• 1218–1250 – the Fuero de Zorita has saguda for a dog snatching meat from a wolf.^[10]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo, the DCECH's first record.^[2][10]
• 1250–1300 – Alfonso X's Moamín describes hunting birds shaking themselves.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: sacudir, Latin quatio.^[12]
• 1548 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records sacudirse “to shake someone off”.^[13]
• 1739 – Autoridades; the noun sacudida is first recorded.^[14][5]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, also reflexive) To shake something violently from side to side.^[6][1]
2. (transitive) To beat or shake something in the air to get the dust (polvo) out of it or to dry it: Sacudió la alfombra en el balcón.^[6][1]
3. (transitive, also reflexive) To hit, to beat someone.^[6]
4. (transitive, also reflexive) To throw something off or push it away from oneself: Se sacudió la nieve del abrigo.^[6][1]
5. (transitive) To shock (conmocionar), to upset someone.^[6]
6. (transitive) To rebuff someone sharply, or reject a proposal outright.^[6][13]
7. (transitive, colloquial) To hand over money.^[6]
8. (Latin America) To dust a room or place.^[16]

Word family

• sacudida
• sacudimiento
• sacudón

Related words

• Latin succutiō
• Portuguese sacudir

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 123
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6443
4. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. sacudir
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sacudir
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. sacudir
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2984
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. sacudir
11. ^ 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. sacudir
12. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 412
13. ^ 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. 1276
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 15
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 950
16. ^ 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. sacudir
17. ^ 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. sacudir