tumbar

Forms

tumbar (first-person singular present tumbo, first-person singular preterite tumbé, past participle tumbado)^[1]

Etymology

Corominas derives it from the imitative syllable /tumb/, the sound of an object that falls and rolls over.^[2][3] The DLE also calls it onomatopoeic, and Bénaben and Gómez de Silva agree.^[4][5][6] The same expressive type is found, with similar senses, in nearly all the Romance languages: Portuguese tombar, Catalan tombar, French tomber and Romanian tumbă.^[2][7][1]

Coromines explains the Catalan verb in the same way.^[8] The DHLF also starts the French verb from an onomatopoeic stem, influenced by Old French tumer, which it takes from Frankish *tūmōn.^[9] García de Diego derives the verb from Vulgar Latin *tumbare formed on tumba “tomb”, and reports Gamillscheg's view that it is the Germanic word for “to turn, overturn” crossed with the noun.^[10] Covarrubias and Autoridades took it from French, and the Academy's dictionaries of 1884 and 1899 from the noun for a tomb.^[11][12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun tumbo “a tumble” is in Calila e Dimna (1251), which led Corominas to suppose that the verb already existed in the 13th century; his own first record is the Celestina (about 1490), where devils come tumbando “tumbling” over one another.^[2][3] The CDH has the verb two centuries earlier, in the Gran Conquista de Ultramar of 1293: cayo el Rey & el cauallo tumbo sobrel Rey “the king fell, and the horse tumbled over onto the king”.^[14] The Libro del caballero Zifar (1300–1305, in a late 15th-century copy) has a man who començó de tumbar por el agua “began to tumble about in the water”.^[14]

Semantic evolution

For centuries the verb meant only “to fall, tumble, roll over”, and it was a word of speech more than of writing: it is missing from Nebrija and the glossaries of about 1400.^[2] Covarrubias (1611) uses it for falling from a high slippery place.^[11] The reflexive tumbarse “to lie down” dates from about 1600.^[3] Autoridades (1739) is the first to record the transitive “to knock down”, the familiar “to mock someone until he takes offence”, the sense “to stupefy”, said of wine or another strong drink, and tumbarse “to lie down, especially to sleep”.^[2][12]

Salvá (1846) records the nautical sense, heeling a ship over to expose the keel, and the Cuban “to clear woodland”.^[15] In the Antilles, Colombia and Venezuela it still means to fell trees and clear land.^[16][17] Colloquial Spanish of Spain uses it for failing someone in an exam, and slang for killing.^[4][18]

Timeline

• 1251 – the noun tumbo in Calila e Dimna.^[3][2]
• 1293 – the verb in the Gran Conquista de Ultramar.^[14]
• c. 1490 – tumbando in the Celestina, Corominas's first record.^[2]
• c. 1600 – the reflexive tumbarse.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines the intransitive verb.^[11]
• 1739 – Autoridades records the transitive verb and tumbarse.^[12][3]
• 1763 – first record from the Americas, a storm in Santo Domingo that knocked down fences.^[19]
• 1846 – Salvá records the Cuban sense “to clear woodland”.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive) To knock down, bring down (derribar) someone or something: El viento tumbó la valla del jardín.^[4][1]
2. (transitive) To tilt something without letting it fall completely.^[4]
3. (transitive) To fell trees or cut certain plants.^[4][16]
4. (transitive, colloquial) To wound badly or kill.^[4]
5. (transitive, colloquial) Of something strong, such as wine or a smell: to make someone dazed or senseless.^[4]
6. (transitive, colloquial) To fail someone in an exam or test.^[4][20]
7. (transitive, Antilles) To rob.^[4][16]
8. (intransitive) To fall, roll on the ground.^[4][1]
9. (intransitive, nautical) To heel over, to careen.^[4]
10. (intransitive, Cuba, Dominican Republic) To head in a certain direction.^[4]
11. (reflexive) To lie down, especially to sleep.^[4][1]
12. (reflexive) To slack off in a task or give it up.^[4]
13. (transitive, Internet) To take down an account, server or post.^[1]

Word family

• tumbo
• tumbado
• retumbar
• tumbaburros
• tumbón
• tumbona
• tumbadero
• tumbadillo
• tumbaollas

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, 692
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tumbar
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. tumbar
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8975
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, 547
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
11. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1356
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 374
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1057
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
15. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá
16. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
17. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 325
18. ^ León, Víctor (1980), Diccionario de argot español y lenguaje popular, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, p. s.v. tumbar
19. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos