sanar

Forms

sanar (first-person singular present sano, first-person singular preterite sané, past participle sanado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish sanar, inherited from Latin sānō (“to heal”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas notes that the verb is common to the Romance languages of the West: Catalan sanar, Italian sanare, Old Galician-Portuguese saar (contracted sar).^[2][5] In many Romance dialects, Catalan among them, the verb also means “to castrate”.^[5]

The Latin verb is formed from sānus (“healthy”), the source of sano.^[6][1] De Vaan reconstructs *sāno- and *seh₂-no-, but calls this purely mechanical; one idea links it to the root *seh₂- (“to tie”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where the Moorish king Fáriz recovers from his wounds: Sanó el rey Fáriz.^[8][9] Menéndez Pidal lists it as an intransitive use.^[9] The Fuero de Madrid (13th-century copy) uses it transitively, of paying per sanar la plaga “to heal the wound”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Lapidario already has the three medical uses: to restore a patient's health, to recover, and to cure a disease; his legal prose also uses sanar for warranting a sold thing against claims.^[10] Corominas finds sanar in the same sense of making amends in the Leyes de Moros (14th–15th centuries), the sense later taken over by sanear.^[2] Autoridades adds a figurative use, restoring someone to good conduct.^[11]

In Mexico sanar is used euphemistically for “to give birth”.^[12][13] In Bolivia sanar la cabeza is to relieve a hangover.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has sanó.^[8][3]
• c. 1215 – the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (in a 14th-century copy) uses sanaré “I shall be healed”.^[8]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it of curing and recovering.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin sano, sanesco and consanesco.^[15][16]
• 1532 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City.^[17]
• 1739 – Autoridades defines it and adds the moral sense.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To heal, cure: to restore someone's health: El tratamiento la sanó en pocas semanas.^[4][1]
2. (intransitive) Of a sick person: to recover.^[4][1]
3. (Mexico, colloquial) To give birth.^[12][13]

Word family

• sanable
• sanador
• sanación
• sanatorio

Related words

• resanar
• sano
• sanear
• subsanar
• Latin sānō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 153
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sano
4. ^ a b c 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. sanar
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. ^ 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. sanar
9. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 841
10. ^ a b 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. sanar
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 36
12. ^ a b Ramos y Duarte, Félix (1895), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Imprenta de Eduardo Dublán, p. 450
13. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 959
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
15. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 413
16. ^ 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
17. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies