valiente

Forms

valiente m or f (masculine and feminine plural valientes, superlative valentísimo or valientísimo)^[1] Old Spanish texts mostly write ualient and ualientes, less often ualiente, uallient or ualent.^[2] Wiktionary gives both superlatives, valentísimo and valientísimo; the Chilean purist Román accepted only the first.^[1][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish valiente, inherited from Latin valēns (“strong, vigorous”), the present participle of valeō (“to be strong, to be healthy”).^[4][5][6][7] The DLE also analyses it within Spanish as valer with the participle ending -nte, and Bénaben calls it an old present participle of the verb used as an adjective and noun.^[5][8]

The same participle gave Portuguese valente, Galician valente, Italian valente and French vaillant.^{[9][10][11][1]} The French form was built on the stem ⟨vaill-⟩ that the verb kept in the subjunctive.^[12] Medieval Latin used valens for “brave”, and as a noun for a thing of a given value.^[13]

The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *walē- and to Proto-Indo-European *h₂wl̥h₁éh₁yeti (“to be strong”).^[14][1] Its Italic cognates include the Oscan, Marrucinian and Paelignian farewell formulas, unless these were borrowed from Latin.^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to 984 in the sense “worth, having the value of”, and to about 1140 in the sense “brave, strong”.^[4][9] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) counts the Cid's men: sin las peonadas e omnes valientes que son, “not counting the foot soldiers and the valiant men there are”, three hundred lances.^[15][16] The first record without a later copy, the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), still has the older sense: a pledge ualient el danno en doble, “worth twice the damage”.^[15]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish valiente kept the senses of the Latin participle: Berceo uses it for “worth” (not worth a pea), and Juan Ruiz for “healthy”.^[17][18] Alfonso X's prose has it for a strong, robust body, for a bold, daring person and, in the Lapidario, as the name of the constellation Orion.^[19]

The Diccionario de Autoridades gives four senses: strong and robust, brave, effective, and excellent of its kind.^[20] The Academy's dictionary of 1843 adds “large, excessive” (hace un valiente frío) and “braggart”, and the proverb los valientes y el buen vino duran poco, a warning to boasters that they run into danger.^[21] The sense “worth” was then marked as old.^[21] Today the sense “large” is mostly ironic, and in Spain food with a strong taste or meat full of sinews is called valiente.^[5][22] In Guatemala a plant that withstands drought is valiente, and Mexican pagar con un valiente is to send a debt collector away with insults.^[23][24]

Timeline

• 984 – first record, in the sense “worth”.^[4]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses valientes for the brave warriors.^[4][15]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes has ualient “worth”: the first record in a text that is not a later copy.^[15]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario calls Orion el valiente.^[19]
• 1251 – the noun valentía is first recorded.^[4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin validus and valens as its equivalents.^[25]
• 1541 – first record from the Americas, in Michoacán: valientes hombres.^[26]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the senses “robust”, “brave”, “effective” and “excellent”.^[20]
• 1843 – the Academy adds “large, excessive” and “braggart”.^[21]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin valens for the first time.^[27]

Meanings

Adjective

1. strong and robust of its kind.^[5]
2. brave, courageous: able to face a risky undertaking in spite of danger and fear; also as a noun: Fue muy valiente al saltar al agua para sacar al niño.^[5][1]
3. Effective and active, physically or morally.^[5]
4. Excellent, very valuable.^[5]
5. (mostly ironic) Great, excessive: ¡Valiente ayuda me has traído!^[5][28]
6. Boastful; a valentón, a braggart; also as a noun.^[5]
7. (Spain) Of food: strong-tasting; of meat: sinewy, as in carne valiente.^[22][5]
8. (Guatemala) Of a plant: resistant to drought.^[23]

Word family

• valentía
• valientemente
• valentón
• envalentonarse

Related words

• valer
• valor
• valeroso
• Latin valēns
• Portuguese valente

Usage notes

As an adjective in -e it has one form for both genders: Gagini criticised the Costa Rican feminine valienta.^[29] The proverb lo cortés no quita lo valiente says that politeness does not take away from courage.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. valiente
3. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 631
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. valer
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. valiente
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7017
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 714
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. valiente
9. ^ a b Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 819
10. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. valente
11. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. valente
12. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. vaillant
13. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. valens
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. valiente
16. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 476
17. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 423
18. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 638
19. ^ 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. valiente
20. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 416
21. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 730
22. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. valiente
23. ^ 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. valiente
24. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 808
25. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 428
26. ^ 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. valiente
27. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1070
28. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. valiente
29. ^ Gagini, Carlos (1893), Diccionario de barbarismos y provincialismos de Costa Rica, San José: Tipografía Nacional, p. 584