sembrar

Forms

sembrar (first-person singular present siembro, first-person singular preterite sembré, past participle sembrado)^[1] Berceo has semnar beside the newer sembrar.^[2] Navarrese texts have sepnar and sempnar, and Asturian and Leonese semar.^[3] The present was at first sembro, sembra, without a diphthong, as in a Palencia charter of 1248.^[2] The form siembran appears in 14th-century manuscripts and is general from the end of the Middle Ages.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sēminō (“to sow”), derived from sēmen (“seed”).^[2][4][5][1] Old Spanish first had semnar, and the newer form with /mbr/ soon became general.^[2][3] The present without a diphthong followed the vowel of the Latin verb, and the later diphthong /je/ is the irregularity that Autoridades remarked on.^[2][6]

The same verb gave Portuguese semear, Galician semear, Asturian semar, Occitan semenar, French semer, Italian seminare and Romanian semăna.^[7][3] Catalan has semenar and Catalan sembrar, which the REW takes to be a loan from Spanish.^[3][7] Spanish later took learned words from the same Latin family, such as semen, seminario and diseminar.^[2][4]

The Latin noun is a derivative of serō (“to sow”).^[8] Wiktionary traces it to *séh₁mn̥ (“seed”), a noun of the root *seh₁- (“to sow”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a charter of 1074 in Oelschläger's list, though he doubts that it is an original.^[2][4] The first literary text is the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200), in a passage from the prophets: the ploughman will overtake the reaper, and the treader of grapes al qui senbra la semient “him who sows the seed”.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already uses the verb in transferred senses: “to scatter”, “to give rise to (evils)” and “to do something that will bear fruit”.^[11] Covarrubias in 1611 records sembrar moneda “to throw coins to bystanders”, sembrar nuevas “to spread news” and sembrar cizaña “to set people against one another”.^[12] Autoridades notes that the cause given is usually a bad one.^[6] The Academy's 1817 dictionary records the sayings como sembráredes, cogeredes “as you sow, so shall you reap” and quien bien siembra, bien coge.^[13] The noun sembrado is first recorded about 1613, in Quevedo.^[2]

The DLE now adds a biological sense, placing microorganisms or cells in a culture medium.^[5] In much of Latin America sembrar also means “to plant” (a seedling or cutting); in Venezuela it means to plant drugs or other evidence on someone; and in El Salvador and Cuba the reflexive means to settle in a place for a long time.^[5][14] In Mexico it has been used for a horse throwing its rider to the ground.^[15]

Timeline

• 1074 – first record, in a charter.^[2][4]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has senbra.^[9][10]
• 1206 – the noun semnadura “sowing” is recorded.^[2][4]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo writes both semnar and sembrar.^[2]
• 1248 – a Palencia charter has the present without a diphthong, sembro, sembra.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin semino as its equivalent.^[16]
• 1515 – first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme, of sowing wheat.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records sembrar cizaña, and the noun siembra is first recorded.^[12][4]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records como sembráredes, cogeredes.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin seminare.^[18]

Meanings

Verb

1. To sow: to scatter seed in ground prepared for it; also intransitive: En octubre sembraron la cebada.^[5][1]
2. To scatter or strew: Sembraron de pétalos la entrada.^[5]
3. To spread a piece of news so that it gets about.^[5]
4. To give rise to, cause: sembrar el pánico.^[5][19]
5. To place things here and there as decoration on something else.^[5]
6. To do something that will later bear fruit.^[5]
7. (biology) To place microorganisms, cells or tissue in a culture medium so that they multiply.^[5]
8. (Latin America) To plant (a seedling, cutting or tuber).^[5][14]
9. (Venezuela) To plant drugs or other incriminating things among someone's belongings.^[5][14]

Word family

• sembrado
• sembrador
• sembradura
• sembradío
• siembra
• resembrar

Related words

• sembrío
• semilla
• simienza
• simiente
• semen
• seminario
• diseminar
• sazón
• Latin sēminō
• Portuguese semear

Usage notes

The verb is irregular, with ie in the stressed forms: siembro, siembras, siembran.^[6][1] A common proverb is quien siembra vientos recoge tempestades “he who sows the wind reaps the whirlwind”.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 197
3. ^ a b c d García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sembrar
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. sembrar
6. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 72
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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. sembrar
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. sembrar
11. ^ 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. sembrar
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. 1292
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 793
14. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. sembrar
15. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 737
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 415
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. sembrar
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 966
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sembrar