víbora

Forms

víbora f (plural víboras)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish bívora, inherited from Latin vīpera (“viper”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas regards it, like Old Galician-Portuguese bívora, as a semi-learned word, because it keeps the vowel after the stress, which Old Catalan vibra, Old Occitan vibra and Old French guivre lost.^[2][5] This made it easier for speakers to turn *víbera into the present form under the influence of vivo, helped by the rounding effect of the /b/ before it;^[6] Bénaben gives the same explanation.^[2][6]

The Latin word left descendants in all the Romance languages of the West, among them Portuguese víbora, Italian vipera and Catalan vibra, but in some of them it has become old-fashioned.^[2][7]

The origin of the Latin word is disputed.^[8][9] The OLD, Lewis & Short and Wiktionary follow Pliny in taking it from *vīvipara (“bearing live young”), from vīvus (“alive”) and pariō (“to give birth”), because the viper was believed to hatch its eggs inside its body.^[8][10][1] De Vaan rejects this on grounds of meaning and form, and prefers Proto-Italic *weipesā, from a root meaning “to swing, agitate” that is also in vibrō (“to shake”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DHLE's first record is the Fazienda de Ultra Mar of Almerich (c. 1200), in the form vibra and with the sense of a venomous snake.^[11] The CDH's earliest hits of 1250 are the Moamín, where sick hawks hiss así como bíuoras “like vipers”, and the Poridat de poridades, with a maiden fed on poison until she took on natura de las biuoras.^[12] The DCECH dates it from Calila e Dimna (1251).^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Lapidario tells of vipers that kill with their gaze alone.^[13] The Bocados de oro has the saying Mejor es estar con bívora sorda, que con mala muger estar.^[12] The word was spelt bívora in Calila, in Juan Manuel and still in Nebrija;^[14] víbora appears in Alfonso de Palencia, and the DHLE finds that spelling from the mid-15th century, when the learned spellings vipera and vípera fall out of use.^[2][11] Latin already used the word as a term of abuse for a dangerous person, and Spanish has the same figurative sense.^[11][4]

In the Americas the word is recorded in Santo Domingo in 1548, and in Guatemala in 1568 it was applied to rattlesnakes, víboras y culebras emponzoñadas, que traen en la cola uno que suena como cascabeles.^[14] In Mexico and Paraguay it is the everyday word for any snake.^[4][15] In Mexico it is also a money belt.^[16][17] The English traveller Richard Hawkins reported in 1622 that the Spaniards of South America called adders vinoras.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has the form vibra.^[11]
• 1250 – the Moamín has bíuoras.^[12]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has biuoras.^[13]
• 1251 – Calila e Dimna, with the spelling bívora.^[2][3]
• 1375–1410 – first in the dictionaries, in the Latin–Spanish glossaries of the Escorial and Toledo.^[11]
• 1492 – Nebrija gives bivora for Latin vipera.^[19]
• 1548 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[14]
• 1622 – Richard Hawkins reports the word in English as vinoras.^[18]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin vipera.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. A viper or adder: a medium-sized venomous snake with a triangular, flattened head and two hollow fangs in the upper jaw through which it injects venom.^[4][1]
2. A person with bad intentions, a malicious or spiteful person: No le cuentes nada, que es una víbora.^[4][1]
3. A fossil tooth, also called lengua de víbora or lengua serpentina.^[4]
4. (Mexico, Paraguay) Any snake (serpiente).^[4][15][1]
5. (Mexico) A money belt.^[16][17]

Word family

• viborezno
• viborear

Related words

• viperino
• vipéreo
• Latin vipera
• Portuguese víbora

Usage notes

Víbora de la cruz is a venomous pit viper of Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay, also called crucera.^[4][21] In Andalusia víbora volante is a reddish-brown beetle with long antennae.^[4][22]

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, 803
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. víbora
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. víbora
5. ^ 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. 9, 269
6. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. víbora
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
13. ^ 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. víbora
14. ^ a b c Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
15. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
16. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé
17. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 1113
18. ^ a b Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database)
19. ^ 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
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 1017
21. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial
22. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos