vacilar

Forms

vacilar (first-person singular present vacilo, first-person singular preterite vacilé, past participle vacilado)^[1] The earliest texts spell the verb bacilar (Heredia, late 14th century) and vaçilar (15th century).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is a learned borrowing, borrowed from Latin vacillare (“to sway from side to side, totter”).^[4][5][6][1] Corominas dates it to the second half of the 15th century and notes that it was still missing from Covarrubias in 1611, but is now in common use among educated speakers.^[4][5]

The same Latin verb was borrowed as Portuguese vacilar, Catalan vacil·lar, French vaciller and Italian vacillare.^[1][7] Catalan has it from 1399, in Bernat Metge, though it was slow to enter everyday use there.^[7] Popular outcomes of the Latin word are rare: Meyer-Lübke lists Italian dialect forms that mean “to talk nonsense”, and Portuguese bacilar (“to hesitate”).^[8]

The Latin verb meant “to stagger, totter, waver” and is used of drunken people; it was a favourite word of Cicero's.^[9][10] De Vaan finds no good etymology for it.^[11] The OLD connects it with a root seen in convexus and in Sanskrit words for “moving to and fro” and “crooked”, while Wiktionary calls its origin unknown.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Historia troyana (1376–1396), where the dignity of an empire must not go bacilando et delesnando daca et dalla “tottering and slipping this way and that” under the blows of fortune.^[3][2] Santillana (c. 1430) uses it of a gaze that wavers in a dazzling light, and a medical text before 1450 of a limb that is bound so that it cannot move to either side.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The physical sense of unsteady movement came first.^[3][4] Alfonso de Palencia's Latin–Spanish dictionary of 1490 already uses the verb for moving from one side to the other.^[4][3] In the 15th century it was also used of a person who wavers in a decision: a chronicle of Enrique IV says of a noble that he vaçilava in the matter, being a changeable man.^[3] The Diccionario de Autoridades gave three senses in 1739: to move without steadiness, to be insecure or in danger of falling (said of physical things and of power), and, figuratively, to doubt or hesitate.^[12] Terreros added that it was said of a building that shakes and of a person who is irresolute.^[13]

In colloquial use the verb took on the sense of teasing someone or pulling their leg, and in much of Latin America that of having a good time.^[6][14] Malaret recorded “to go on a spree” in Mexico and “to get tipsy” in Guatemala and Mexico in 1946, and Santamaría described the Mexican use for revelling, joking and idling as thoroughly vulgar in 1959.^[15][16] Regional senses today include “to dance” (Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Chile), “to stroll” and “to waste time” (Guatemala, El Salvador), “to have a fling” (Ecuador), and “to ogle” (Cuba).^[17] In Spain it can also mean “to show off”.^[14]

Timeline

• 1376–1396 – first record, as bacilando, in Heredia's Historia troyana.^[3][2]
• c. 1430 – Santillana writes vaçilava in El sueño.^[3]
• c. 1445 – Diego de Valera, whom Corominas gives as the first record, uses it in his treatise in defence of virtuous women (known from a 16th-century copy).^[4][3]
• 1490 – Palencia's Universal vocabulario glosses a Latin verb with vacilar de una parte a otra.^[4][3]
• 1557 – the first record from the Americas, in a letter from Chile.^[18]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the physical and the figurative senses, with quotations from Luis de Granada and Solís.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. vacillare”.^[19]
• 1946 – Malaret records the Mexican sense “to go on a spree”.^[15]

Meanings

Verb

1. (intransitive) To move unsteadily, sway or totter: La escalera vacilaba bajo su peso.^[6][14]
2. (intransitive) To be unstable or at risk of falling or collapsing, of things and of abstract matters.^[6][14]
3. (intransitive) Of a person: to hesitate, waver, be undecided: Vaciló un instante antes de firmar.^[6][1]
4. (intransitive, colloquial, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Puerto Rico) To have fun, enjoy oneself.^[6][1]
5. (transitive, colloquial) To tease, fool or make fun of someone, pull someone's leg.^[6][1]
6. (intransitive, colloquial, Spain) To show off, boast.^[14]

Word family

• vacilación
• vacilante
• vacil
• vacile
• vacilón

Related words

• titubear
• Latin vacillō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. vacilar
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. vacilar
4. ^ 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, 727
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vacilar
6. ^ a b c d e f g 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. vacilar
7. ^ a b 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, 14
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9114
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. vacillo
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 407
13. ^ 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, 747
14. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vacilar
15. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 806
16. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 1103
17. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. vacilar
18. ^ 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. vacilar
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1067