yerno

Forms

yerno m (plural yernos, feminine nuera, feminine plural nueras)^[1] Old Spanish texts write gerno, yerno, ierno, erno, gierno, jerno and hierno.^[2] Moliner lists the old and regional forms genro, gerno and herno.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish yerno, inherited from Latin gener (“son-in-law”).^[4][5][6][1] The same word is Portuguese genro, Galician xenro, Asturian xenru, Catalan gendre, French gendre, Italian genero and Romanian ginere.^[7][4][8]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *genros and Proto-Indo-European *ǵm̥ros (“son-in-law”), from the root *ǵem-.^[1][9] De Vaan explains its /n/ as an earlier /m/ assimilated before /r/, and compares Ancient Greek γαμβρός (gambrós, “son-in-law”), from the same preform.^[9][10] Corominas, Bénaben and Vox connect the word with genus (“origin, birth, race”) and gignō (“to beget”).^[4][11][12] Gómez de Silva instead takes the /n/ to be due to the influence of words such as genitor (“father”).^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to a charter of 1015.^[4][5] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) already has the plural: los yernos e las fijas todos vuestros fijos son “sons-in-law and daughters are all your children”.^[14]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has not changed since Old Spanish: Alfonso X's Estoria de España calls Caesar and Pompey suegro e yerno “father-in-law and son-in-law”.^[15] Nebrija (c. 1495) gives jerno for the husband of one's daughter, with Latin gener, and for the husband of one's granddaughter, with progener.^[16]

The Academy's dictionaries of the 19th century record the proverb Nuestro yerno, si es bueno, harto es luengo, which advises valuing goodness and virtue in a son-in-law above other gifts, and ciega yernos, any showy thing of little worth, alluding to the trinkets used to deceive the unwary in dowries.^[17][18] The DLE now defines the word without reference to gender, as the spouse of one's daughter or son.^[6] In rural Peru it also names an outsider who marries a woman of an indigenous community.^[19]

Timeline

• 1015 – first record, in a charter.^[4][5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has the plural yernos.^[14]
• 1218 – yerno in a document of Oña, the first record in a dated original.^[14]
• c. 1234–1275 – the Fuero de Cáceres writes gerno.^[14]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija enters Jerno in his Spanish–Latin dictionary.^[16]
• 1529 – first record from the Americas, as hierno, in Santo Domingo.^[20]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records ciega yernos and the proverb on a good son-in-law.^[17]
• 1899 – the Academy derives the word from the Latin ablative genero.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. son-in-law: the husband of one's daughter, or the spouse of one's son: Mi yerno nos visita cada domingo.^[6][1]
2. (Peru, rural) In indigenous communities, an outsider who marries a local woman.^[19]

Related words

• engendrar
• género
• Portuguese genro
• Catalan gendre
• Latin gener

Usage notes

The corresponding word for a daughter-in-law is nuera.^[1] Moliner gives hijo político as a synonym.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. yerno
3. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. yerno
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 623
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. yerno
6. ^ a b c 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. yerno
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. xenru
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. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. yerno
12. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. yerno
13. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. yerno
14. ^ 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. yerno
15. ^ 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. yerno
16. ^ a b 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. yerno
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 904
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 805
19. ^ 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. yerno
20. ^ 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. hierno
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 1034