tirar

Forms

tirar (first-person singular present tiro, first-person singular preterite tiré, past participle tirado)^[1] In Judeo-Spanish the verb survives with the old sense, tirarse “to move away (from)”.^[2]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Vulgar Latin *tīrāre, a verb known only from the Romance languages, whose origin is uncertain.^[2][3][4][1] The same word is Italian tirare, French tirer, Occitan tirar, Catalan tirar, Portuguese tirar and Asturian tirar; it is found in every Western Romance language but not in Romanian.^[5][3][1]

Corominas called the verb one of the darkest problems of Romance etymology.^[1] He thought it very doubtful that it comes from the Germanic verb for “tear”, *teraną (𐍄𐌰𐌹𐍂𐌰𐌽 (tairan)), because the senses “pull out” and “throw” that dominate from the first records in every Romance language are far from the Germanic meaning.^[2] Instead he suggested that it arose in the slang of Roman soldiers from the word for “arrow” in the language of the Parthians, the Iranian word seen in تیر (tir), from the root of Proto-Indo-European *steyg- (“sharp, pointed”); he compared carcaj and French frapper, which he took to be other Iranian words of the soldiers' jargon.^[2][3][6] He rejected Serra's *martyrāre “to torture” as ingenious but forced.^[2] Wiktionary lists these and other proposals and favours the Germanic one.^[1] The Academy's 1884 dictionary derived the verb from the Gothic one; the DLE now calls it of uncertain origin.^[7][4] The Germanic verb itself goes back to Proto-Indo-European *der- (“to flay, split”).^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy), where the infinitive is used as a noun, al tirar de la lança, “at the pulling-out of the lance”.^[10][11] In medieval texts the sense “take out, remove, take away” is strikingly common, as in Berceo's tirar non lis podieron valient una agalla “they could not take from them so much as a gall-nut's worth”.^[2][12]

Semantic evolution

The modern senses “throw” and “shoot” are also there from the beginning: Berceo writes of the arrows that the Moors shot (essas saetas mismas que los moros tiraban), and Alfonso X's prose has “throw”, “knock down”, “shoot” and “stretch”.^[2][13] The old sense “take out, remove” began to decline in the 15th century: a copyist of the Libro de Alexandre replaced tirar with sacar, and later it survived only in set phrases such as tirte allá “get away”.^[2] Nebrija still gave the verb for removing something from its place.^[2][14]

The 1726–1739 Autoridades defined it as “throw with force” and added “resemble”, used of colours (tira a azul), and “attract”, as the magnet attracts iron.^[15] The 19th-century dictionaries add “draw metal into wire”, “waste money” and “earn a salary”, and by 1917 “print”.^[16][17] In Cuba, Colombia and Chile tirar means “carry, transport” (sugar cane in Cuba), and in much of Latin America it is a vulgar word for having sex.^[18][19][20]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has al tirar de la lança.^[10][11]
• 1230–1260 – the Libre dels tres reys d'Orient, the first record without a later copy.^[10]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses tirar for “throw” and for drawing a bow.^[13]
• 1515 – the first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme: tiramos nuestro camino “we set off on our way”.^[21]
• 1726–1739 – the Autoridades records the senses “throw”, “resemble” and “attract”.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives the verb from Gothic.^[7]

Meanings

Verb

1. To drop something on purpose: Tiró las llaves en la mesa.^[4][1]
2. To throw or hurl in a given direction.^[4][1]
3. To knock down a person; to demolish a building or fell a tree.^[4]
4. To throw away, discard: Voy a tirar estos zapatos viejos.^[4][1]
5. To fire a gun or set off an explosive; also intransitive, to shoot.^[4][1]
6. To stretch out; to draw lines.^[4]
7. To roll the dice or play one's piece in a game; in ball games, to shoot at goal.^[4][1]
8. To squander money or property.^[4]
9. To take a photograph; to print.^[4][1]
10. To pour beer or cider from a height.^[4]
11. (intransitive, with de) To pull: El perro tiraba de la correa.^[1][17]
12. (intransitive) To head somewhere; to get by; to attract or appeal to.^[1]
13. (reflexive) To throw oneself, jump.^[1]
14. (Latin America, vulgar) To have sex.^[20][1]

Word family

• tiro
• tirada
• tirador
• tirante
• tirón
• tirotear
• estirar
• retirar
• tiralíneas
• tiragomas
• francotirador
• tiroteo

Related words

• tirita
• Italian tirare
• French tirer
• Portuguese tirar

Usage notes

Set phrases include a todo tirar “at the most”, tirar la toalla “to throw in the towel” and tirar la casa por la ventana “to spare no expense”.^[4][1] Corominas considers tira “strip” a separate borrowing from Catalan tira, which goes back to a Frankish word for “ornament”, though it has been drawn into the family of tirar.^[2][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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, 505
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tirar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. tirar
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. *tirare
6. ^ 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, 499
7. ^ 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. 1028
8. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
9. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. tirar
11. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. tirar
12. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. s.v. tirar
13. ^ 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. tirar
14. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 423
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 280
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 702
17. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1587
18. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 177
19. ^ Suárez, Constantino (1921), Vocabulario cubano, La Habana: Librería Cervantes / Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Compañía, p. 493
20. ^ 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. tirar
21. ^ 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. tirar