tuyo

Forms

tuyo m sg (plural tuyos, feminine tuya, feminine plural tuyas)^[1] Old Spanish had the unstressed forms to (masculine) and tu or tue (feminine) beside tuyo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Latin tuus (“your, yours”), which in Spanish split into an unstressed form tu (in Old Spanish masculine to, feminine tu or tue) and a stressed form, the present word.^[2][4][5][6] The ⟨y⟩ is explained by analogy: with the relative cuyo, which carries the idea of possession, according to Wiktionary, Cejador and Bénaben, who also names mío, pronounced [mi-y-o].^[1][7][8] Gómez de Silva puts it down to the feminine form.^[9]

The same Latin word is Portuguese teu, Catalan teu, Italian tuo, French ton and Romanian tău.^[6][1] The Portuguese and Catalan forms took their vowel from the first-person possessive, meu and meu.^[10][11] The Latin word is the possessive of tū (“you”) and goes back to *towos; the OLD compares the Doric form τέος (téos).^[1][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel cites tuyo from the vocabulary of the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140), and Corominas says both tu and tuyo are documented from the beginnings.^[13][2] Its first primary record in the DEMel is the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (1200–1250).^[13] In Alfonso X's Estoria de España it is a possessive of the second person: tomes los mios enemigos por tuyos “take my enemies as yours”.^[14]

Semantic evolution

Already in Alfonso X los tuyos means the people bound to the listener by kinship, friendship or service.^[14] The Diccionario de Autoridades illustrates it with the phrase no había mío ni tuyo entre ellos “there was no mine and yours among them”, of shared goods.^[15] Terreros records the substantive use (la amistad no conoce el mío y tuyo).^[16] Corominas notes that tuyo has stayed in constant and general use even in the American countries that use vos instead of tú.^[2] In Ecuadorian youth slang the noun tuyo or tuya is a boyfriend or girlfriend.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – recorded in the vocabulary of the Cantar de mio Cid.^[13]
• 1211 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar is the first text with the word in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[18]
• 1270–1284 – por tuyos in Alfonso X's Estoria de España.^[14]
• 1558 – first record in the Americas, in Yucatán.^[19]
• 1591 – Percyvall translates it “thine”.^[20]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades derives it from Latin tuus.^[15]

Meanings

Determiner

1. your, of yours: belonging to the person spoken to, placed after the noun: un amigo tuyo.^[5][1]

Pronoun

1. yours, with the article: Mi coche es rojo y el tuyo es azul.^[5][1]
2. los tuyos: your family, friends or party.^[5][21]
3. lo tuyo: what suits you or what you do well.^[21]
4. (Ecuador, youth slang) One's boyfriend or girlfriend.^[17]

Related words

• mío
• suyo
• nuestro
• vuestro
• tú
• tu
• Latin tuus

Usage notes

Tuyo is the stressed form and follows the noun or a verb such as ser (es tuyo); before the noun the unstressed tu is used.^[21][2] Set phrases are la tuya “your chance” (ahora es la tuya) and hacer de las tuyas “to be up to your usual tricks”.^[5][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 681
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 420
4. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tú
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. tuyo
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9020
7. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 1126
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. tuyo
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 705
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6940
11. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. teu
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. tuus
13. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. tuyo
14. ^ a b c 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. tuyo
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, s.v. tuyo
16. ^ 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, 729
17. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. tuyo
18. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. tuyo
19. ^ 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. tuyo
20. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 226
21. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tuyo