venado

Forms

venado m (plural venados, feminine venada, feminine plural venadas)^[1] Old Spanish texts write venado and uenado.^[2] Cejador notes the feminine venada in Colombia, formed as pescada beside pescado.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vēnātus (“hunting, the chase; game”), the action noun of vēnor (“to hunt”).^{[4][5][6][1][7]}

Corominas finds the word only in Portuguese veado and in Romanian vânat, which keeps the older sense “game”; he denies that a Catalan form exists, although the REW and García de Diego list Catalan venat.^[4][8][9] French venaison (“big game”) has a similar sense, from the related noun vēnātiō.^[4]

De Vaan traces the Latin verb, through Proto-Italic, to a root Proto-Indo-European *wenh₁- (“to desire”).^[10] Wiktionary calls that link disputed and names another possible root, *weyh₁- (“to chase, pursue”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (1220–1250): Buscades la batuda teniendo el venado “you look for the track while you have the game in hand”.^[4][5][11] At first the word meant, as in Latin, any animal that was hunted: the Libro de Alexandre describes meadows with grant avondo de diversos venados “plenty of many kinds of game”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The sense “game” is still the only one in Oudin's dictionary, but Covarrubias (1611) gives the word as the equivalent of Latin cervus “deer”, and Autoridades quotes 17th-century writers in that sense.^[4][12] Autoridades (1739) records both: a kind of deer, and in old usage any big game.^[13] The Academy's 1884 edition marks the second sense as obsolete, applied above all to the bear, the boar and the deer.^[14] Corominas notes that venado “deer” remains a popular word in many regions, particularly in Argentina.^[4]

In the Americas the word is recorded from 1512, in Puerto Rico, for deerskin shoes, and in 1515 for dried venison found in native stores.^[15] It names several American deer.^[16] In Cuba it has meant tanned deerskin and, colloquially, a prostitute.^[16][17] In the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Chile and Argentina it means a man whose partner has been unfaithful to him.^[17][18]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – Berceo uses it for hunted game.^[4][5]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses uenado of a deer.^[19]
• 1512 – first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[15]
• 1552 – Bartolomé de las Casas writes of hunting venados in New Spain.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias gives it the sense “deer”, Corominas's date for that sense.^[12][5]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records “deer” and, as old usage, “big game”.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology from Latin venatus.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. deer (ciervo); in Wiktionary's description a Latin American usage.^[6][1]
2. (obsolete) Any animal of big game, particularly the bear, the boar or the deer.^[6]
3. venison.^[1]
4. (Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Chile, Argentina, colloquial) A cuckold.^[17][1]
5. (Cuba, colloquial) A prostitute.^[17][1]
6. (El Salvador) Anger.^[17][21]

Word family

• matavenados

Related words

• venablo
• venación
• venador
• venatorio
• Portuguese veado
• Latin vēnātus

Usage notes

A separate adjective venado “crazy, scatterbrained”, formed on vena, is recorded by the DLE as another word.^[6][22] It is used in León for “mad”.^[23] In Venezuela que no lo brinca un venado means that something is plain to see.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. venado
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1908–1914), Tesoro de la lengua castellana: origen y vida del lenguaje, 12 vols., Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Compañía, p. s.v. venado
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 765
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. venado
6. ^ 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. venado
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7066
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 781
12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1376
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 439
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1077
15. ^ 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. venado
16. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 255
17. ^ a b c d e Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. venado
18. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. venado
19. ^ 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. venado
20. ^ Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. venado
21. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. venado
22. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. venado
23. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. venado