toser

Forms

toser (first-person singular present toso, first-person singular preterite tosí, past participle tosido)^[1] Old Spanish and Nebrija write tosser.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tussiō (“to cough”).^[2][4][5][1] Only Castilian moved the verb from the ⟨-ir⟩ to the ⟨-er⟩ conjugation; the other Romance languages, including Catalan tossir, Portuguese tossir, Galician tusir and Asturian tusir, keep the Latin ending.^[2][6] Wiktionary suggests the change may be due to coser.^[1] Further cognates are French tousser, Italian tossire and Romanian tuși.^[7][1]

The Latin verb is formed on tussis (“cough”), the source of Spanish tos.^[8][2] De Vaan finds a link with tundō (“to beat”) possible in meaning but hard in form, and thinks the noun may be onomatopoeic.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a glossary of El Escorial of about 1400.^[2][4] Earlier is a passage of the Estoria de España in a manuscript dated 1284–1345, in which Doña Sancha hides Count García Fernández, armed, under the bed and forbids him que non se meçiese nin tosiesse “to move or cough” until she pulls a cord.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The verb has kept its sense through the history of the language.^[2] Autoridades also gives the sense of faking a cough to call someone or to give a sign.^[11] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 adds the colloquial toser a alguien “to compete with someone, to stand up to them”, used mostly with a negative, as in no hay quien le tosa.^[12][5] In Mexico toser alone means to brag or play the tough.^[13]

Timeline

• 1284–1345 – tosiesse in a manuscript of the Estoria de España.^[10]
• c. 1300–1325 – tosser in the Cuento de Otas de Roma, known from a copy of about 1400.^[14]
• c. 1400 – the glossaries of El Escorial, Corominas's first record.^[2][4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin tussio for tosser.^[3]
• 1549 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades adds the sense of a feigned cough.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary records toser a alguien “to compete with someone”.^[12]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To cough; to have a cough: El humo de la chimenea nos hizo toser a todos.^[5][1]
2. (intransitive) To force air out of the chest to clear what troubles it.^[5]
3. (transitive, colloquial, usually negative) To compete with someone, to stand up to them: En el ajedrez nadie le tosía.^[5][1]
4. (Mexico) To brag, to act the tough.^[13]

Word family

• tosidura

Related words

• tos
• tosferina
• Portuguese tossir

Usage notes

Toser is a regular verb (toso, tose). Writers on usage in Mexico, Chile and Argentina censured the popular forms tueso, tueses.^[13][16][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 565
3. ^ 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. toser
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tos
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. toser
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6936
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9015
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ 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. toser
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 309
12. ^ 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. 1037
13. ^ a b c Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 1078
14. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. toser
15. ^ 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. toser
16. ^ 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. 517
17. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 480