suspirar

Forms

suspirar (first-person singular present suspiro, first-person singular preterite suspiré, past participle suspirado)^[1] Old Spanish had sospirar, the form of the Cid and of Nebrija, beside which the Latinised suspirar spread from the 15th century; in the Americas sospirar is still found in 1548, suspirar from 1563.^[2][3][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish sospirar, inherited from Latin suspīrō (“to sigh”).^[6][7][1][8] García de Diego calls the modern form with ⟨u⟩ a learned word beside the old one.^[9] Vox calls it a word inherited from Latin.^[8]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese suspirar, Catalan sospirar, Italian sospirare, Romanian suspina and French soupirer, whose older form suspirer was altered after other words in ⟨sou-⟩.^{[10][11][12][13]}

The Latin verb is formed from sub- (“under, up from below”) and spīrō (“to breathe”).^[14][1][15] De Vaan thinks the base verb is possibly imitative of the sound of breathing.^[16]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), as the hero leaves his empty house: Sospiró mio Cid, ca mucho avié grandes cuidados “My Cid sighed, for he had great cares”.^[17][18][6] The Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200) uses it of the children of Israel groaning to God in their bondage.^[17]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose has the sense “to breathe” as well as “to sigh”: the Lapidario says that a stone lets its wearer breathe in water.^[19] Autoridades adds the figurative sense “to long for something”, with a quotation in which the absent man sighs for his home and the prisoner for his freedom.^[20] From 1869 the Academy has suspirar por alguna persona “to be deeply in love with someone”.^[21] In Puerto Rico the verb can mean simply “to breathe”.^[22] English borrowed the Latin and French verb as suspire about 1500.^[23]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy) has sospiró.^[17][6]
• 1240–1272 – Herman the German's Psalter, the first record in a contemporary manuscript.^[17]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for “to breathe”.^[19]
• 1436 – the first suspirar form in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija still has sospirar, with Latin suspiro.^[4]
• 1548 – first record in the Americas, as sospirar, in Santo Domingo.^[5]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records the sense “to long for”.^[20]
• 1869 – the Academy adds suspirar por alguna persona.^[21]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To sigh: Suspiró aliviado al ver llegar el tren.^[7][1]
2. (intransitive, with por) To long for something or someone; to be in love with someone: Suspira por volver a su pueblo.^[7][24]

Word family

• suspiro

Related words

• espirar
• respirar
• aspirar
• inspirar
• English suspire

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. suspirar
3. ^ 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, p. s.v. suspirar
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. suspirar
5. ^ 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. sospirar
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. espirar
7. ^ 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. suspirar
8. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. suspirar
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6512
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3197
12. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 8, 105
13. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
14. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
15. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. suspirar
16. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
17. ^ 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. suspirar
18. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 401
19. ^ 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. suspirar
20. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 193
21. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 730
22. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. suspirar
23. ^ Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
24. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. suspirar