urdir

Forms

urdir (first-person singular present urdo, first-person singular preterite urdí, past participle urdido)^[1] Old Spanish ordir (participle ordido) and the noun ordidura appear in the 13th-century fueros beside urdir;^[2][3] Nebrija still gives only ordir.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish ordir, inherited from Latin ōrdīre (“to lay the warp”), the active form of the deponent ōrdior that Afranius already used.^{[1][4][3][5][6]} Corominas explains the u-: in forms such as ⟨urdiendo⟩ and ⟨urde⟩, both already in Berceo, the change of /o/ to /u/ was regular from early on.^[3] The other forms kept /o/, as in the preterite ⟨ordyó⟩ of the Poema de Fernán González, but the forms with u- soon spread to the whole verb.^[3]

The same Latin verb is Romanian urzi, Italian ordire, French ourdir, Catalan ordir, Portuguese urdir and Galician urdir.^[7][1] In Catalan it is first recorded in the chronicle of James I.^[8]

The Latin verb was at first a weaving word, “to lay the warp”, and came to mean “to begin” in general.^[9][4] De Vaan connects it with ōrdō (“row, order”) and suggests a stem *ordi- (“row, arrangement”), perhaps from Proto-Indo-European *h₂or-d-;^[9][1] Wiktionary calls its origin unknown.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), in a rule for weavers on how a cloth must be warped: E deue ordir a X anieellos glomeros, et en el ordidura aya setenta et VIII cuerdas.^[2] Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo (c. 1236) already has the figurative sense: el dïablo lo urde “the devil is weaving it”, that is, plotting it.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The figurative sense “to plot” is as old as the literal one: the Libro de Alexandre says the devil always weaves malas çeladas “wicked ambushes”, and the Estoria de España speaks of the treason that Count Julian urdió.^[2][10] Weaving images go with it: grand tela ordida “a great web woven” in the Poema de Fernán González, and urdir una trama e una tela in a letter from Panama of 1543.^[2][11] Autoridades gives both senses and no longer knows a form with o-.^[12][3] The DLE keeps the same two, the textile one first; in Chile it is also used for weaving on the traditional loom of Chiloé.^[5][13]

Timeline

• 1218–1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes has ordir and ordidura in a weavers' rule.^[2]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo has urde for plotting.^[2][3]
• c. 1250 – the Poema de Fernán González has the preterite ordyó.^[3]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses urdió of Count Julian's treason.^[10]
• 1492–1495 – Nebrija gives ordir tela for Latin ordior.^[14][3]
• 1543 – the first record from the Americas, in Panama.^[11]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records only urdir, in the literal and the figurative sense.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives its Latin etymon.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (transitive, weaving) To warp: to prepare the threads on the warping frame before they go to the loom.^[5][1]
2. (transitive) To plot or scheme: to plan something in secret against someone or for some purpose: Urdieron un engaño para quedarse con la casa.^[5][1]

Word family

• urdidera
• urdidor
• urdimbre
• urdidura
• desurdir

Related words

• exordio
• primordial
• orden
• Latin ōrdior

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 Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. urdir
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 721
4. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c d 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. urdir
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. urdir
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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. 6, 98
9. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. urdir
11. ^ a b 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. urdir
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 397
13. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. urdir
14. ^ 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. urdir
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1064