sordo

Forms

sordo (feminine sorda, masculine plural sordos, feminine plural sordas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin surdus (“deaf; muted”); Old Spanish sordo has the same form.^[2][3][4][1] The word has been in use at every period and is common to all the Romance languages.^[2]

The same Latin word is Portuguese surdo, Galician xordo, Asturian sordu, Aragonese xordo, Catalan sord, Occitan sord, French sourd, Italian sordo, Romanian surd and Sardinian surdu.^{[2][5][6][7][1]} The ⟨x⟩ of the Galician form is usually explained as a spontaneous palatalisation;^[2] Corominas compares the Catalan and Aragonese verb eixordar (“to deafen”), from Vulgar Latin *exsurdāre.^[2] Nascentes thinks the Portuguese adjective passed through an archaic *sordo, a form still heard in Beira Alta and Trás-os-Montes, and that its ⟨u⟩ may be due to mudo (“mute”).^[8] Old Spanish also had suerdo, in the legend of Crescencia, perhaps influenced by tuerto.^[9]

The Latin adjective meant both “unable to hear” and “not heard, indistinct”.^[10][11] Wiktionary and Gómez de Silva connect it with Proto-Indo-European *swer- (“ringing, whistling”), the root of susurrus (“a whisper”).^[1][12] De Vaan objects that this leaves the meaning unexplained.^[13] He suggests, calling it very speculative, that the word first meant “hearing” and reversed its sense under the influence of absurdus (“out of tune; absurd”).^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a charter of 1188, and the word is then in Berceo.^[2][3] The DEMel has it in the Fuero de Madrid (1158–1202), and the HSMS's first dated text is of 1211.^[14][15] In Alfonso X's Lapidario a stone heals any deaf man who carries it: si la trae omne sordo dequal natura quier que la aya; sana “if a deaf man carries it, whatever the nature of his deafness, he is healed”.^[16]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija in 1513 defines it simply as “one who does not hear”, with Latin surdus.^[17] Covarrubias in 1611 records the proverb No ay peor sordo que el que no quiere oír “there is none so deaf as he who will not hear”.^[18] Autoridades adds the senses “silent, without noise”, with Góngora's sordos remos “silent oars”, and by metonymy “so loud that it deafens”, with Ercilla's sordo estruendo.^[19]

The Academy in 1817 gives the sense “sounding dull or faint” (ruido sordo, campana sorda) and the figurative “deaf to persuasion or advice”.^[20] Domínguez (1846) and the Academy in 1884 record the nautical sense, a swell running against the wind, and the 1884 and 1899 editions the mathematical raíz sorda and número sordo, an irrational root or number.^[21][22][23] The phonetic sense “voiceless” is in the modern dictionaries.^[4][24][1]

In the Americas the LHA records the word from 1545, in Mexico.^[25] In Mexico it is also said of a horse that does not answer the rein, and in Puerto Rico of a badly tuned guitar.^[26][27]

Timeline

• 1188 – a charter, Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• 1211 – the first dated text in the HSMS.^[15]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of a stone that heals the deaf.^[16]
• c. 1440 – the learned absurdo, from Latin absurdus.^[3]
• 1495 – Nebrija records ensordar and ensordecer.^[3][2]
• 1545 – the first record in the Americas, in Mexico.^[25]
• 1599 – sordez “deafness”, later replaced by sordera (1674).^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the proverb No ay peor sordo que el que no quiere oír.^[18]
• 1613 – Cervantes uses sordina “mute”, probably from Italian sordina.^[2][3]
• 1817 – the Academy gives the sense “sounding dull”.^[20]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology and the nautical and mathematical senses.^[22]

Meanings

Adjective

1. deaf, hard of hearing: Su abuelo se quedó sordo con los años.^[4][1]
2. Silent, noiseless.^[4]
3. Of a sound, dull, muffled, without a clear timbre: Se oyó un golpe sordo en el piso de arriba.^[4][1]
4. Unmoved by pleas or by the pain of others.^[4]
5. Deaf to persuasion, advice or warnings: Siguió sordo a todos los consejos.^[4][28]
6. Of a feeling or a pain, held in, not openly shown: Lo consumía una rabia sorda.^[28][24][1]
7. (phonetics) voiceless: produced without vibration of the vocal cords.^[4][1]
8. (nautical) Of the sea or a swell, running in a direction different from the prevailing wind.^[4]

Noun

1. A deaf person.^[4][1]

Word family

• sordera
• ensordar
• ensordecer
• asordar
• sorda
• sordomudo

Related words

• absurdo
• sordina
• Latin surdus
• Portuguese surdo

Usage notes

The phrases a la sorda, a lo sordo and a sordas mean “quietly, without noise”, and hacerse el sordo is “to pretend not to hear, to ignore a request”.^[4][28] The feminine noun sorda is the woodcock in the DLE and the snipe in Corominas.^[4][2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 310
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sordo
4. ^ 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. sordo
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8474
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6499
7. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. sordu
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 656
13. ^ 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
14. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. sordo
15. ^ a b Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
16. ^ 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. sordo
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 418
18. ^ 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. 1308
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 159
20. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 814
21. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1586
22. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 990
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 928
24. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial
25. ^ a b 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. sordo
26. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 748
27. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. sordo
28. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos