tierno

Forms

tierno (feminine tierna, masculine plural tiernos, feminine plural tiernas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tener (“soft, delicate, young”).^[2][3][4][1] After the unstressed middle vowel was lost, the consonants /n/ and /r/ came together and changed places, /nr/ becoming /rn/.^[5][1] The form without this transposition survives in Asturias, Asturian tienru, and in popular Castilian tienro.^[2][6]

The DCECH notes that the word has been in general use at every period and is kept in all the Romance languages.^[2] Its cognates include Portuguese tenro and terno, Galician tenro, Catalan tendre, French tendre, Italian tenero and Romanian tânăr (“young”).^[6][7][1] Portuguese split the two forms by sense, the first keeping the physical meaning and the second meaning “affectionate”.^[8][9]

The origin of the Latin adjective is disputed.^[1] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *terenos and Proto-Indo-European *ter-en- (“tender”), comparing Sanskrit तरुण (táruṇa, “young, tender”) and Ancient Greek τέρην (térēn, “soft, delicate”).^[10][1] The older view links it instead with *ten- (“to stretch”), the root of Latin teneō and tendō.^[1][11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel's first dated record is in the Fazienda de Ultramar (1200–1250).^[13] The DCECH dates the word from the early 14th century, from the Zifar and the Conde Lucanor, which have carne tierna “tender meat” and moço tierno for a delicate boy, but notes that it must be much older.^[2] In Alfonso X's Lapidario (1250–1279) a stone is called tierna because it can easily be worked with iron, and the General Estoria (1272–1275) uses the word of people still young in the faith, “like infants at their mother's milk”.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The physical sense “soft, easily cut or bent” has always stood beside the figurative ones.^[2][14] Alfonso de Palencia glossed Latin molle as tierno, blando, doblegadizo “tender, soft, pliable” in 1490.^[2] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) gave four senses: soft and delicate, affectionate and loving, of the age of childhood, and inclined to weep, with tierno de ojos for someone with weak, watering eyes.^[15] The Academy's 1843 edition added “recent, of short duration”, and the 1884 edition labelled every sense except the first as figurative.^[16][17]

In much of Latin America tierno is said of fruit that is still green and unripe, a usage Alemany recorded for Ecuador in 1917.^[18][19][1] In Central America and elsewhere the noun tierno, tierna means a small child or baby, and in Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua luna tierna is the new moon.^[19][4]

Timeline

• 1200–1250 – the Fazienda de Ultramar has the first dated record.^[13]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario calls a stone soft enough to be carved tierna.^[14]
• 1272–1275 – the General Estoria uses it of people young in the faith.^[14]
• early 14th century – carne tierna in the Zifar, the DCECH's first record.^[2][3]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia glosses Latin molle with it.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives tierna cosa as the equivalent of Latin tener.^[2]
• 1556 – first record from the Americas, in Yucatán.^[20]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines four senses, including “inclined to weep”.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin tener.^[17]
• 1917 – Alemany records the Ecuadorian sense “unripe”.^[18]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Especially of food: tender, soft, easily pressed out of shape and easy to cut or chew: Este filete está muy tierno.^[4][21][1]
2. recent, of short duration.^[4]
3. Of an age: belonging to childhood, with its delicacy and docility: en sus tiernos años.^[4][1]
4. Easily moved to tears.^[4][21]
5. affectionate, loving and kind.^[4][1]
6. Delicate, gentle.^[4][1]
7. Of a living thing: young, only recently grown: los tallos tiernos del rosal.^[4][21]
8. Not yet completely dry, as fresh paint.^[4]
9. (Latin America) Of fruit: green, unripe.^[4][19][1]

Noun

1. (Central America and the Caribbean) A small child, a baby.^[19][22]

Word family

• ternera
• terneza
• ternura
• ternilla
• enternecer
• ternero
• desternillarse
• tiernamente

Related words

• Latin tener
• Portuguese tenro
• English tender

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 487
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tierno
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. tierno
5. ^ Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (2015), Obras completas, vol. 12: 1936–1940 III, ed. Miguel D. Mena, Santo Domingo: Ministerio de Cultura, p. 112
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6635
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8645
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. tenro
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
13. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. tierno
14. ^ a b c d 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. tierno
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 273
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 700
17. ^ 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)
18. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1582
19. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. tierno
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. tierno
21. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tierno
22. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. tierno