tronar

Forms

tronar (first-person singular present trueno, first-person singular preterite troné, past participle tronado)^[1] Old Spanish also had truenar, which Alfonso de Palencia used in 1490.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tonāre (“to thunder”), with an /r/ taken from the noun Old Spanish tronido (“thunder”).^[3][4][5][1] That noun was first tonidro, from tonitrus (“thunder”), and took its /r/ by metathesis; the old form is found in the Libro de Alexandre.^[3][4] Old Spanish tonar without the /r/ is listed by García de Diego, and Menéndez Pidal heard tona (“thunderstorm”) in western Asturias, but Corominas thinks such forms were never widespread.^[6][3]

The /r/ is shared by Catalan tronar, Occitan tronar and Portuguese troar, while French tonner, Italian tonare and Romanian tuna keep the Latin form.^[7][1] Coromines believes the /r/ was already widespread in Vulgar Latin, where Vulgar Latin *tronitus had arisen by metathesis from the Latin noun, which was popularly stressed on the /i/.^[8] The REW offers this explanation beside Schuchardt's, that /tr/ had become a kind of sound-imitating element, as in tremō (“to tremble”).^[7]

The Latin verb is from Proto-Italic *tonaō and Proto-Indo-European *(s)tenh₂- (“to thunder”), the root of English thunder.^[1] The OLD compares Old English þunor and Old High German donar, both “thunder”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DHLE's first record is the Semejanza del mundo, which it dates c. 1223 from the manuscript in the Biblioteca Nacional.^[2] Among texts copied in their own century, Alfonso X's General Estoria (1272–1275) has the verb in its first sense, of thunder in the sky: començo a tronar & relampagar muy fuert “it began to thunder and lighten very fiercely”.^[10][11] Corominas, who had no record before Nebrija at hand, dated it 1490 in the Breve diccionario.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

From the General Estoria on, the verb also had a personal subject, Jupiter or God making the thunder, and by the 15th century it was used of any loud noise like thunder.^[2] The Diccionario de Autoridades gave the extension to the noise of firearms, with Espinar's advice that good gunpowder should not thunder much, and the phrase por lo que pudiere tronar “just in case”.^[12]

Salvá in 1846 recorded tronar “to die” and “to go bankrupt” (ese tronó), the Academy in 1869 added “to lose all one's money at cards” and tronar con uno “to fall out with someone”, and in 1899 “to be ruined” and “to rail violently against something”.^[13][14][15] In Mexico and Central America the verb has meant “to shoot, execute” in Malaret's and Santamaría's dictionaries of the 1940s; it also means “to fail an examination”, “to sack someone” and, in Ecuador, “to die”.^[16][17][18]

The derivative tronada “thunderstorm” is, according to Corominas, the source of the English word tornado, recorded from 1556.^[4]

Timeline

• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General Estoria uses tronar of thunder.^[10]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia records the variant truenar.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin tono, detono and intono.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it “to make thunder”.^[20]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades adds the noise of firearms; first record of tronada.^[12][4]
• 1778 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[21]
• 1846 – Salvá records the colloquial senses “to die” and “to go bankrupt”.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. tonare”.^[22]

Meanings

Verb

1. (impersonal) To thunder: Anoche tronó durante horas.^[5][1]
2. To make a loud noise or boom, as firearms do when fired.^[5]
3. (colloquial) Of a person: to lose one's fortune, to be ruined.^[5]
4. (colloquial) To rail violently against someone or something.^[5][23]
5. (colloquial) To fall out with someone, usually tronar con: Tronó con su socio después del pleito.^[5]
6. (El Salvador, Mexico) Of a person: to fail in an attempt.^[5]
7. (Mexico, Central America, Cuba, colloquial) To fail a student in an examination.^[5][18]
8. (Mexico, Central America, Cuba, Bolivia) To dismiss someone from a job.^[5][18]
9. (Mexico, Central America, colloquial) To shoot dead, to execute.^[5][18]
10. (Ecuador, colloquial) To die.^[18][1]

Word family

• tronada
• tronado
• trueno
• atronar
• tronera

Related words

• estruendo
• tronido
• detonar
• Latin tonō
• Portuguese troar

Usage notes

It is conjugated like contar: truena, truenan;^[23][12] Autoridades already noted the change of o to ue in some persons.^[23][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. tronar
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 659
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tronar
5. ^ 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. tronar
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 6737
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. tonāre
8. ^ 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, 866
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. tonō
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. tronar
11. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. tronar
12. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 364
13. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 1080
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 769
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 988
16. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 795
17. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 221
18. ^ a b c d e Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. tronar
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 425
20. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1352
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. tronar
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1054
23. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tronar