hambre

Spanish

Alternative forms

Etymology

Inherited from Old Spanish fambre, fanbre, famne (compare Ladino ambre), from Vulgar Latin *faminem (possibly the accusative of a variant nominative form *famen or *famis),[1] from Classical Latin famēs, from Proto-Indo-European *dʰH- (“to disappear”). Compare also Portuguese fome, Galician fame, French faim, dialectal Occitan hame, Italian fame, Sardinian fámine, famen, Romanian foame. Cognate with English famine, famish. Doublet of fame.

Pronunciation

  • IPA(key): /ˈambɾe/ [ˈãm.bɾe]
  • Audio (Colombia):(file)
  • Rhymes: -ambɾe
  • Syllabification: ham‧bre

Noun

hambre f (plural hambres)

  1. hunger
    ¿Qué te parece si comemos ahorita? – No tengo mucha hambre.
    What do you think if we eat right now? – I'm not very hungry.
    Sí, me muero de hambre.
    Yes, I'm starving.
    (literally, “dying of hunger”)

Usage notes

  • Before feminine nouns beginning with stressed /ˈa/ like hambre, the singular definite article takes the form of el (otherwise reserved for masculine nouns) instead of the usual la: el hambre. This includes the contracted forms al and del (instead of a la and de la, respectively): al hambre, del hambre.
This also applies to the indefinite article, which takes the form of un, which is otherwise used with masculine nouns (although the standard feminine form una also occurs): un hambre or una hambre. The same is true with determiners algún/alguna and ningún/ninguna, as well as for numerals ending with 1 (e.g., veintiún/veintiuna).
However, if another word intervenes between the article and the noun, the usual feminine singular articles and determiners (la, una etc.) are used: la mejor hambre, una buena hambre.
  • In these cases, el and un are not masculine but feminine, deriving from Latin illa and una, respectively, even though they are identical in form to the corresponding masculine singular articles. Thus, they are allomorphs of the feminine singular articles la and una.
  • The use of these allomorphs does not change the gender agreement of the adjectives modifying the feminine noun: el hambre única, un(a) hambre buena.
  • In the plural, the usual feminine plural articles and determiners (las, unas, etc.) are always used.


Derived terms

References

  1. ^ Joan Coromines, José A[ntonio] Pascual (1983–1991) “hambre”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico [Critical Castilian and Hispanic Etymological Dictionary] (in Spanish), Madrid: Gredos

Further reading

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