tardar

Forms

tardar (first-person singular present tardo, first-person singular preterite tardé, past participle tardado)^[1] The Glosas Emilianenses have the form tardarsan.^[2] Old Spanish texts also show tardaua, tardasse and tardare.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish tardar, inherited from Latin tardō (“to slow down, delay; to be slow”).^[3][4][5][1] The Latin verb is derived from the adjective tardus (“slow”).^[4][6][7]

The same verb is Portuguese tardar, Catalan tardar, Occitan tardar, French tarder and Italian tardare.^[8][9] Corominas notes that it is common to all the western Romance languages and has been in general use in Spanish at every period.^[3]

De Vaan finds no etymology for the adjective, and rejects the old comparison with Greek and Sanskrit words meaning “weak” and “young” as unconvincing in sense and impossible in form.^[7] Wiktionary connects it with Proto-Indo-European *terh₂- (“to cross over, pass through”), while noting that de Vaan considers the etymology uncertain.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is first recorded in the Glosas Emilianenses, of about 950, in the form tardarsan.^[2][4][3] In the Cantar de mio Cid it is already used in three ways: transitively, “to delay (something)”, as in non lo tardó “he did not delay it”; intransitively, non quiso tardar “he did not want to linger”; and reflexively, non vos tardedes “do not tarry”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the prose of Alfonso X the verb means “to tarry, be slow to act”, “to spend time doing something” and, transitively, “to hold someone back”.^[11] Covarrubias in 1611 defines it simply as “to stop, linger”, with Latin moror as its equivalent.^[12] The Diccionario de Autoridades has only the sense “to linger, spend a long time, not come at the right moment”.^[13] The Academy added the phrase a más tardar by 1843, and in 1869 the neutral sense “to spend (a given) time doing something”, which is now the first sense of the verb.^[14][15][5]

Corominas notes that in Argentina and other countries of the Americas tardar is much less common in speech than demorar.^[3] In Leonese it has also meant “to last, remain”.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 950 – the Glosas Emilianenses have the form tardarsan.^[2][4]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses the verb transitively, intransitively and reflexively.^[10]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it of help that comes too late.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin cunctor for tardar o tardarse.^[17]
• 1532 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as “to linger”.^[12]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary records the phrase a más tardar.^[14]
• 1869 – the Academy adds the sense “to spend time doing something”.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology, from Latin tardare, for the first time.^[19]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To take (a certain time) to do something, usually with en and an infinitive: Tardé media hora en encontrar las llaves.^[5][1][20]
2. (intransitive, also pronominal) To take too long; to be late or slow in doing something: Si te tardas, perderemos el autobús.^[5][1]

Word family

• tardanza
• retardar
• detardar
• tardón

Related words

• tarde
• tardío
• tardo
• atardecer
• Latin tardus
• Portuguese tardar

Usage notes

A más tardar means “at the latest” and fixes the latest time by which something will happen.^[5][20] The verb is usually construed with en (tardar en venir), but Cervantes and Lope de Vega also used de and a.^[21][22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. tardar
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 417
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tardar
5. ^ a b c d e 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. tardar
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. tardāre
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6571
10. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 454
11. ^ 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. tardar
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. 1319
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 228
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 690
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 737
16. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. tardar
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 420
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. tardar
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1010
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tardar
21. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1561
22. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 412