soñar

Forms

soñar (first-person singular present sueño, first-person singular preterite soñé, past participle soñado)^[1] Old Spanish texts write sonnar, sonno, suennan and sonaua beside soñar.^[2][3] The stressed forms have the diphthong ⟨ue⟩: sueño, sueñas, sueña.^[4][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish soñar, inherited from Latin somniō (“to dream”).^[5][1][6][7] The Latin verb is formed from somnium (“dream”), itself from somnus (“sleep”).^[8][9][1] In Spanish the Latin nouns for “sleep” and “dream” merged in sueño, which means both “sleep” and “dream”.^[7][6]

The same Latin verb gave Portuguese sonhar, Galician soñar, Asturian suañar, Catalan somiar, French songer and Italian sognare.^[10][11][12] somnus goes back to Proto-Italic *swepno- and Proto-Indo-European *su̯épno- (“sleep”), the source also of Old Irish súan.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is in the Cantar de mio Cid (about 1140, in a 14th-century copy): Mucho era pagado del sueño que soñado á “he was well pleased with the dream he had dreamed”.^[3][13][7]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish already used the verb for dreaming in sleep, and Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of the frightening dreams that a stone brings to its wearer.^[14] The figurative sense, to imagine fancifully and take for true what is not, was in Autoridades, as was the phrase ni soñarlo “not even in dreams”.^[4] Covarrubias in 1611 quoted the proverb Soñaba el ciego que veía, y soñaba lo que quería “the blind man dreamed he could see, and dreamed what he wanted”.^[15] Cervantes uses ni lo sueñan for “it has not even crossed their minds”.^[16]

The sense “to long for”, constructed with con (soñar con grandezas), is now one of the commonest, and soñar despierto means “to daydream”.^[5][17] A threatening use, me vas a soñar “you'll remember me”, means to dread someone's revenge.^[5] In Peru and Ecuador it is colloquial for being knocked out or knocking someone out.^[18][1]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has el sueño que soñado á.^[3][7]
• c. 1230 – Berceo uses soñavan “imagined” in the Vida de San Millán.^[3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it of bad dreams.^[14]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Latin somnio as its equivalent.^[19]
• 1532 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias quotes the proverb of the blind man who dreamed he could see.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records the figurative sense and ni soñarlo.^[4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To dream: to see images or events in the mind while asleep; also intransitive, with con: Anoche soñé con mi abuela.^[5][1]
2. To imagine fancifully and take for certain what is not true: soñar despierto.^[5]
3. (intransitive, with con) To long for something persistently: Sueña con tener una casa en el campo.^[5][17]
4. (usually as a threat) To dread someone, to remember their revenge or punishment.^[5]
5. (Peru, Ecuador, colloquial) To be knocked unconscious; to knock someone out.^[18][1]

Word family

• soñador
• soñación

Related words

• sueño
• ensueño
• somnolencia
• Latin somnium

Usage notes

Ni soñarlo is a colloquial refusal, “not a chance”.^[5][17] The verb is conjugated like contar (sueño, soñamos).^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. soñar
3. ^ 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. soñar
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 153
5. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. soñar
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 327
7. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sueño
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8082
11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6224
12. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. soñar
13. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 450
14. ^ 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. soñar
15. ^ 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. 1307
16. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 1048
17. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. soñar
18. ^ 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. soñar
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 418
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. soñar