viudo

Forms

viudo (feminine viuda, masculine plural viudos, feminine plural viudas)^[1] Old Spanish forms include bibdo, viodo, bildo and bilvo;^[2] Leonese has vieudo and the Salamanca dialect beyudo and venudo.^[2]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Latin viduus (“deprived of a spouse, widowed”).^[3][1][4] The feminine viuda, from vidua, is recorded from about 1140, the masculine only from 1495.^[5] Bénaben and Wiktionary take the masculine to be modelled on the older feminine.^[4][1] Wiktionary adds that it may be an earlier learned form Old Spanish vidu reshaped after the feminine, and that the regular inherited outcome would have been viso, which is recorded once.^[1] The Catalan dictionary of Alcover and Moll explains Catalan viudo the same way, from an archaic vido remade after the feminine.^[6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese viúvo, Italian vedovo, French veuf and Romanian văduv.^[1][7] In French too the masculine was remade after the feminine.^[8]

The Latin adjective goes back to Proto-Italic *wiþowo- and Proto-Indo-European *h₁ui-dʰh₁-eu-o- (“separated”); its cognates include Old Irish fedb, Old High German wituwa and English widow.^[9][10] De Vaan notes that Latin and Greek have an adjective used of both sexes, while the other languages have a feminine noun “widow”, and takes the adjective to be the older form.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The feminine is much older than the masculine: the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140) already has bibdas “widows”, and Berceo has bebda and bibda.^[11][5] The masculine viudo is first recorded in 1495.^[5] In the Americas a document of 1569 from Mexico City speaks of el viudo o viuda living on his or her own.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In the Quijote a character says soy viudo, porque se murió mi muger “I am a widower, for my wife died”.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined viudo as a man whose wife had died and who had not remarried, and as an adjective applied it to birds that live in pairs, such as turtledoves.^[14] The Academy's edition of 1884 defined the adjective for a person of either sex and recorded proverbs such as la viuda honrada, su puerta cerrada “the honest widow keeps her door shut”.^[15] Domínguez in 1846 also recorded a figurative “deprived of something”.^[16]

Today the word is also used of food cooked on its own, without meat or other ingredients to give it body, such as patatas viudas.^[3][17] Informally a person whose partner is away for a time can be called viudo, in Spain and in Mexico and Chile.^[17][18]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the feminine bibdas in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[11][5]
• 1256–1300 – Alfonso X's laws speak of a cleric who marries mugier bibda “a widow”.^[19]
• 1495 – first record of the masculine viudo.^[5]
• 1569 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records the figurative use for birds that lose their mate.^[20]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin viduus and defines the word for either sex.^[15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. widowed: of a person whose spouse has died and who has not married again; also as a noun, a widower or (feminine) a widow.^[3][1]
2. Of certain birds that live in pairs, such as the turtledove: that has lost its mate.^[3]
3. Of food: cooked or eaten without the ingredients that usually give it body: judías viudas.^[3][17]
4. (informal) Of a person: whose spouse or partner is away for a time.^[17][18]

Noun

1. (feminine, viuda) mourning bride (Scabiosa atropurpurea), a garden plant with dark purple flowers; also its flower.^[3][1]

Word family

• viudez
• viudedad
• enviudar

Related words

• vidual
• Latin viduus
• Portuguese viúvo
• English widow

Usage notes

Viuda negra is the black widow spider.^[3][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. viuduus
3. ^ 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. viudo
4. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. viudo
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. viuda
6. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. viudo
7. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. viúvo
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
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. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 431
12. ^ 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. viudo
13. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 1163
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 506
15. ^ 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. 1095
16. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1747
17. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. viudo
18. ^ 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. viudo, da
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. viudo
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 897