traer

Forms

traer (first-person singular present traigo, first-person singular preterite traje, past participle traído)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote the infinitive traher, a spelling still found in the 18th century.^[2][3] The medieval preterite was troxo or traxo.^[4] The classical preterite truje and subjunctive trujera survive in some dialects, for example in Chile.^[1] A contracted infinitive trer, normal in Portuguese, was heard by Corominas among country people of Mendoza.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish traer, inherited from Latin trahō (“to drag, pull”).^[5][6][7][1] The same Latin verb gave Portuguese trazer, Galician traer, Asturian trayer, Aragonese trayer, Catalan treure (older traure), French traire, Italian trarre and Romanian trage.^[8][9][10] The Portuguese verb and the French verb go back to a remade Vulgar Latin *tragere, modelled on agō.^[11][12][13]

The origin of the Latin verb is unclear.^[1] De Vaan finds its closest cognates in Celtic, in Old Irish words for “ebb” and “ran away”.^[14] A link with Proto-Germanic *draganą (“to drag, draw”) is debated because of the initial consonants: some derive both from a root Proto-Indo-European *dʰregʰ-, while de Vaan thinks they could be loans from a common non-Indo-European source.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) has the first record: bien lo vedes que yo no trayo nada, “you can well see that I carry nothing”.^[15][5] In the Auto de los Reyes Magos (c. 1180) Balthasar wonders about the star, quin la trae o quin la tine, “who brings it or who holds it”.^[15]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages the verb often kept the Latin sense “to drag”: in Juan Ruiz the millwheel drags the wolf round.^[5] The other Latin sense, “to pull”, became “to throw”: in Berceo devils toss a soul about like a ball.^[5] Another frequent medieval sense was “to wear, have on”, which the verb keeps today.^[5][7] From “to drag” it weakened to the modern “to bring”, but it could also mean “to take, carry away”, as in Cervantes's time and still in a writer of northern Argentina.^[5] Alfonso X's prose already has “to attract”, “to cause” and “to keep someone in a state”.^[16]

Covarrubias recorded the phrases traer nuevas “to bring news” and traer la soga arrastrando.^[17] The Academy's 1817 edition lists, besides “to bring” and “to attract like a magnet”, “to cause worry”, “to handle”, “to wear”, “to adduce reasons” and an obsolete “to hand over by treason”.^[18] The DLE also has the sense of a newspaper “carrying” a piece of news.^[7] Mexican, Salvadoran and Uruguayan Spanish say traer cortito “to keep someone on the go and afraid”, and Chile, Argentina and Uruguay traer bajo el poncho “to carry hidden”.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has trayo, “I carry”.^[15][5]
• c. 1180 – the Auto de los Reyes Magos uses trae of the star.^[15]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General estoria uses troxo for “drew, attracted”.^[16]
• c. 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz still uses the verb for “to drag”.^[5]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary gives traer for Latin affero and apporto.^[20]
• 1494 – the first records from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[21]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it “to draw, to fetch, to carry, to bring”.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin traho and lists phrases with it.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology trahere.^[23]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To bring, take something to the place where the speaker is or of which one speaks: ¿Me traes el cargador del móvil?^[7][1]
2. (transitive) To attract, draw towards oneself.^[7]
3. (transitive) To cause, bring about: Tanta lluvia traerá inundaciones.^[7][1]
4. (transitive) To keep someone in a given state: Ese asunto me trae preocupado.^[7][1]
5. (transitive) To wear, have on: Traía una chaqueta de cuero.^[7][1]
6. (transitive) To adduce, bring forward reasons or authorities, as in traer a colación.^[7][1]
7. (transitive) To oblige someone to do something.^[7][1]
8. (transitive) To persuade someone to follow an opinion or party.^[7][1]
9. (transitive, also pronominal) To be engaged in something, have it in hand, often of hidden aims: ¿Qué se traerán esos dos?^[7]
10. (transitive) Of a newspaper or other text, to carry, contain: La revista trae una entrevista con ella.^[7][1]
11. (transitive, rare) To handle something well.^[7]
12. (pronominal, rare) To dress or carry oneself well or badly.^[7]

Word family

• traedor
• traedura
• maltraer
• maltrecho

Related words

• atraer
• detraer
• tracción
• tractor
• traje
• trajinar
• tratar
• trazar
• contraer
• distraer
• extraer
• abstraer
• retrato
• Latin trahō
• Portuguese trazer

Usage notes

The DLE has a second verb traer, from Latin tradĕre “to hand over”, with the obsolete sense “to betray, hand over by treason”.^[7][24][25] DICCA-XV reports its first record as 1280 in the DCECH and 1236 in the CORDE.^[26] The DEMel has trae in a document of 1248.^[4] The Academy's 1817 dictionary already marked it as obsolete.^[18]

The phrase traer a mal traer “to ill-treat, keep someone harassed” keeps the old verb maltraer “to ill-treat, scold”, recorded from 1220–50, whose participle is maltrecho.^[6] Traer is used for movement towards the speaker, llevar for movement away from them.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. traer
3. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 677
4. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. traer
5. ^ 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, 575
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. traer
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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. traer
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6798
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ 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, 797
11. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3361
12. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. trazer
13. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. traire
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ 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. traer
16. ^ 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. traer
17. ^ 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. 1342
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 853
19. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. traer
20. ^ 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. traer1
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. traer
22. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 223
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1039
24. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. traer
25. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. traer
26. ^ 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. traer2