sangrar

Forms

sangrar (first-person singular present sangro, first-person singular preterite sangré, past participle sangrado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish sangrar, inherited from Latin sanguinō (“to bleed”), a verb formed from sanguis (“blood”).^[2][3][1][4] The Academy's dictionaries of 1884 and 1899 instead derived it from sangre.^[5] Corominas notes that the Latin verb lives on in all the Romance languages: Italian sanguinare, French saigner and Old Occitan sangnar are the same word, and Catalan borrowed the Spanish verb.^[2][6] In Medieval Latin it meant both “to bleed” and “to let blood from someone”.^[7]

The noun shows the same reduction of the Latin cluster: its older form ⟨sangne⟩ still occurs in the Fuero de Avilés and in Berceo.^[2]

De Vaan traces the Latin noun to the oblique stem of Proto-Indo-European *h₁ésh₂r̥ (“blood”), whose nominative survives in other branches.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Fuero de Brihuega (c. 1242), on a hired animal that falls ill: si por mal que ouiere la sangrare la bestia el que la leuare, “if, for an ailment it has, the man who hired it bleeds the beast”.^[9][10] Corominas's earliest examples are from the Lucan translation made for Alfonso X and in Juan Ruiz.^[2] His short dictionary gives 1335.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Bloodletting, of people and of animals, is the main medieval sense: the Moamín has sick hawks bled in the vein under the wings.^[12] Nebrija rendered the verb with Latin pertundo venam “I open a vein”, and Juan de Valdés wrote that he had often heard jassar for sangrar but would not say it himself.^[2][13]

The Diccionario de Autoridades added “to order a bleeding” and “to draw off water from a river or pond”, and figuratively “to take part of what is stored together”.^[14] Terreros recorded sangrar la bolsa, “to take money from someone”.^[15] The Academy's 1817 edition lists the printers' sense “to indent a line” and the intransitive “to bleed”.^[16] The DLE also has tapping trees for resin and, colloquially, pilfering part of a store, as from a sack of wheat.^[3] Moliner notes the figurative use of a wound or an insult that “still bleeds”.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1242 – the Fuero de Brihuega uses sangrare of bleeding a hired animal.^[9][10]
• c. 1250 – the Bocados de oro has lanceta de sangrar, “a bleeding lancet”.^[10]
• 1250–1300 – the Moamín prescribes bleeding sick hawks.^[12]
• 1335 – the date Corominas's short dictionary gives for the word.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin pertundo venam and demitto sanguinem and the Greek-derived phlebotomizo.^[4]
• 1535 – the first record from the Americas, in Lima, for bleeding a horse.^[18]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades adds drawing water from a river.^[14]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records the printing sense “to indent”.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To bleed someone, open a vein to let out some blood.^[3][1]
2. (transitive) To drain a liquid in whole or in part by opening a channel for it.^[3]
3. (transitive) To tap a tree for resin (resinar).^[3][1]
4. (transitive, colloquial) To pilfer part of a whole without being noticed: Alguien ha sangrado la caja del bar.^[3]
5. (transitive, printing) To indent a line, as at the start of a paragraph.^[3][1]
6. (intransitive) To bleed, lose blood: Le sangraban las encías.^[3][1]
7. (pronominal) To have oneself bled.^[3]

Word family

• sangrador
• sangradura
• sangría
• desangrar

Related words

• sangre
• sangriento
• sanguíneo
• sanguinario
• Latin sanguis

Usage notes

The phrase estar sangrando is said of something that has just happened, or that is plain to see.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 151
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. sangrar
4. ^ a b 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. sangrar
5. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 957
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ 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. sangrar
10. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. sangrar
11. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sangre
12. ^ 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. sangrar
13. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 413
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 37
15. ^ 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, 434
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 784
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sangrar
18. ^ 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. sangrar