yacer

Forms

yacer (first-person singular present yazco or yazgo or yago, first-person singular preterite yací, past participle yacido)^[1] Old Spanish wrote yazer, iazer and yaser.^[1][2][3] Its old strong preterite was yogo (subjunctive yoguiere); a misreading of it as yogó gave rise to an infinitive yogar.^[4][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish yazer, inherited from Latin iaceō (“to lie”).^[5][6][1] The same Latin verb is Portuguese jazer, Catalan jeure (older jaure), French gésir, Italian giacere and Romanian zăcea.^[4][1][7] In Ribagorza the form is Aragonese chase.^[8]

The Latin verb is the stative counterpart of iaciō (“to throw”): “to lie” was first “to be in the state of a thing thrown”.^[9][1][10] De Vaan traces both verbs to a root Proto-Indo-European *(H)ieh₁- (“to throw, let go”), the root of Ancient Greek ἵημι (híēmi, “to send, throw”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has the verb in the sense “to lie, to rest for the night”: Esta noch yagamos e váimosnos al matino, “let us lie here tonight and leave in the morning”.^[11][5] The Auto de los Reyes Magos (c. 1180) asks whether something lies in the scriptures (si iace in escripto).^[11]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used the verb for lying down, for a body lying in the grave, for a thing being in a place, and for sleeping with a woman.^[12][11] Alfonso X's General estoria (1280) says that an epitaph should give the name of the one who lies there (el nombre del qui yaze alli).^[12] After the 15th century the verb became rare.^[5]

Autoridades (1726–1739) defines it as lying stretched out, used properly of the dead, and notes forms with g such as yago and yazga; it quotes the Quijote: donde yago tan molido.^[13] Terreros gives the epitaph formula aquí yace.^[14] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 marks the sexual sense as old, and that of 1884 adds horses grazing in the fields at night.^[15][16] The derivative yacimiento “deposit (of minerals)” dates from about 1900.^[5]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid (14th-century copy) has yagamos.^[11][5]
• c. 1180 – the Auto de los Reyes Magos has iace.^[11]
• 1280 – Alfonso X's General estoria uses it of the dead in a grave.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin iaceo and cubo for jazer.^[17]
• 1571 – first record from the Americas, in a vocabulary from Mexico City that gives its Nahuatl equivalents.^[18]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades notes the forms yago and yazgo.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy adds “to graze at night”.^[16]
• c. 1900 – first record of yacimiento.^[5]

Meanings

Verb

1. Of a person: to lie, be stretched out: El herido yacía junto al camino.^[6][1]
2. Of a dead body: to lie buried in a grave or tomb.^[6]
3. Of a person or thing: to be, really or figuratively, in a place.^[6]
4. To have sexual relations with someone; to lie with.^[6][19]
5. Of a horse or mule: to graze at night.^[6]

Word family

• yacimiento
• yaciente

Related words

• yacente
• yacija
• adyacente
• subyacente
• Latin iaceō
• Portuguese jazer

Usage notes

Aquí yace “here lies” opens many epitaphs.^[19][14] The verb is irregular: first person present yazco, yazgo or yago, with the same three stems in the present subjunctive.^[19][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 433
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. yacer
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4563
5. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. yacer
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. yacer
7. ^ 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. 4, 887
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. jacere
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. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. yacer
11. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. yacer
12. ^ a b c 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. yacer
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 542
14. ^ a b 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, 834
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 903
16. ^ 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. 1103
17. ^ 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, p. s.v. yacer
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. yacer
19. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. yacer