terrible

Forms

terrible m or f (masculine and feminine plural terribles)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin terribilis (“frightening, dreadful”), a learned word of the family of terror.^[2][3][4][1] Corominas dates it to about 1400, in the old Judeo-Spanish Bibles, and finds it frequent from the middle of the 15th century.^[2][3] The CDH has earlier records, the first from 1293.^[5]

The same Latin word was borrowed as French terrible and Italian terribile; Portuguese terrível is semi-learned.^[6][7][8] The source word was formed from Latin terreō (“to frighten”) + -bilis.^[1][9] The verb goes back to Proto-Italic *tros-eje- (“to scare”), from Proto-Indo-European *tros-eie- (“to make scared”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit, in the Historia de la donzella Teodor, is dated c. 1250 but known only from an edition of 1500–1503.^[5] The first one without a later witness is in the Castigos of 1293, where an angel appears con cara mucho terrible “with a very terrible face”, in the sense “causing fear”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias (1611) defines terrible as harsh in character or anything that causes fright, and the Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) as what deserves to be feared and causes dread, adding the sense “harsh and hard of temper”.^[11][12] The Academy's 1884 edition added the sense “very great, enormous of its kind”.^[13] Today the word is used for anything very bad or very intense, and in Chile and Uruguay it can also mean “spectacular, very good”.^[4][14][15]

Timeline

• 1293 – the Castigos have cara mucho terrible.^[5]
• c. 1400 – the old Judeo-Spanish Bibles, Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin terribilis and horribilis.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the sense “harsh in character”.^[11]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as “fit to be feared”.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary adds “very great, enormous”.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. terrifying, causing terror.^[4][1]
2. Hard to bear, awful.^[4][1]
3. Very great or excessive: Tenía un hambre terrible.^[4][1]
4. (Chile, Uruguay; colloquial) Spectacular, very good.^[15]

Word family

• terriblemente
• terribilidad

Related words

• terror
• aterrar
• Latin terribilis
• Portuguese terrível

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 473
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. terror
4. ^ 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. terrible
5. ^ 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. terrible
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. terrible
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 775
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. terrível
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. terrible
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. terreo
11. ^ 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. 1326
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 260
13. ^ 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. 1021
14. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. terrible
15. ^ 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. terrible
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 422