trabajar

Forms

trabajar (first-person singular present trabajo, first-person singular preterite trabajé, past participle trabajado)^[1] The original form was trebajar, with the vowels later assimilated;^[1] tre- survives in Upper Aragonese treballar and Navarrese trebajar.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *tripaliāre (“to torture”), a verb formed on tripalium (“instrument of torture”).^[3][2][4][1] The noun is recorded from the 6th century, in the form trepalium, for a kind of stocks in which offenders were tormented; it was named after the three stakes it was made of, and is related to the classical adjective tripalis (“made of three stakes”), from tres (“three”) and palus (“stake”).^[3][2] H. and R. Kahane, quoted by Corominas, take it as a calque of late Greek τριπάσσαλον (tripássalon, “instrument of torture”), from πάσσαλος (pássalos, “peg”).^[3][1] This etymology goes back to Paul Meyer (1888).^[3] Corominas rejects Diez's *trabaculum and a later variant of it, because the Catalan, Occitan and Aragonese forms keep the vowel ⟨e⟩ of the first syllable and the ⟨b⟩.^[3]

The same word is Portuguese trabalhar, Galician traballar, Catalan treballar, Occitan trebalhar, French travailler and Italian travagliare.^[3][5][6] Corominas holds that the sense of labour developed independently in each language, and is not a gallicism in Spanish, since it is recorded earlier in Castile than in France.^[3] The noun trabajo (1212) is a back-formation from the verb.^[3][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), keeps the old sense of torment: a woman begs mercy for her daughter, who was travaiada “tormented” by the devil.^[7] In Berceo (1220–1250) the verb, often reflexive, means “to strive, to try hard”.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

The sense moved from “to suffer” to “to strive” and then to “to labour”.^[3][2] In the Middle Ages “strive, seek” was much more common than “labour”, and Juan Ruiz still uses it close to “suffer”.^[3] The modern sense appears at least from the 14th century, in Don Juan Manuel; about 1400 glossaries translate Latin laborare with it, and Nebrija gives laboro.^[3][8] From the 16th century it is the normal sense, as labrar and obrar lost ground.^[3] The noun trabajo kept the sense “suffering, hardship” better, as in the title of Cervantes's Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda.^[3]

Covarrubias (1611) took the verb for a corruption of an old trevejar, and the Academy's dictionary of 1884 derived it from Gothic dreiban “to drive”.^[9][10] In Costa Rica, Colombia, Venezuela and Bolivia trabajar a alguien is to put a spell on someone.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar uses the participle travaiada “tormented”.^[7]
• 1212 – the noun trabajo first recorded.^[3][2]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo uses the verb for “to strive”, the DCECH's first record.^[3][2]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Libro conplido uses trauaiar for “to work”.^[12]
• 14th century – the sense “to labour” in Don Juan Manuel.^[3][2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin laboro, elaboro.^[8]
• 1509 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[13]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from trevejar.^[9]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Gothic.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To work, to be busy with a physical or mental task: Trabajó toda la noche en el informe.^[4][1]
2. (intransitive) To have a paid job; to work in a trade or profession: Trabaja de camarero.^[4]
3. (intransitive) Of a machine or business, to operate, function.^[4]
4. (intransitive) To do business with a firm.^[4]
5. (intransitive) To strive for something: trabajar por la igualdad.^[4]
6. (intransitive) Of a thing, to act or produce an effect; in building and mechanics, to bear a load.^[4]
7. (transitive) To work hard at; to shape a material: trabajar el hierro.^[4]
8. (transitive) To till the land; to exercise a part of the body.^[4]
9. (transitive) To try to win someone over.^[4]
10. (obsolete) To suffer.^[1][3]

Word family

• trabajador
• trabajo
• trabajoso
• trabajado

Related words

• Portuguese trabalhar
• French travailler
• Late Latin tripalium

Usage notes

Set comparisons include trabajar como un condenado.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. trabajar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 571
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. trabajar
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6858
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3334
7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. trabajar
8. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 424
9. ^ 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. 1341
10. ^ 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. 1038
11. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. trabajar
12. ^ 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. trabajar
13. ^ 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. tlabajal