llegar

Etymology

From Latin plicāre, present active infinitive of plicō. See also the doublet plegar.

Verb

llegar

1. to arrive

Etymology

From Latin legāre, present active infinitive of legō.

Pronunciation

• (Balearic, Central) IPA^(key): /ʎəˈɡa/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /ʎeˈɡaɾ/

Verb

llegar (first-person singular present llego, past participle llegat)

1. to hand down, to pass down

Further reading

• “llegar” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.

Etymology

From Latin plicāre, present active infinitive of plicō (“I fold”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *pleḱ- (“to plait, to weave”). The semantic shift over time from "to fold" is also found in some other Romance cognates, and may be linked to the idea of folding sails when arriving at a port, especially in Iberian Romance where naval tradition was strong. Compare Portuguese chegar; however cf. also Romanian pleca (“to leave”), with the opposite meaning, possibly because there the word was associated with folding up tents and leaving. See also the Spanish doublet plegar (“to fold”). Another theory instead derives llegar from a Vulgar Latin plicāre as a regressive derivation from Classical Latin applicāre (“apply, add, attach, join to”)^[1].

Pronunciation

• (Castilian) IPA^(key): /ʎeˈɡaɾ/, [ʎeˈɣaɾ]
• (Latin America) IPA^(key): /ɟ͡ʝeˈɡaɾ/, [ɟ͡ʝeˈɣaɾ]

Verb

llegar (first-person singular present llego, first-person singular preterite llegué, past participle llegado)

1. (intransitive) to arrive, get (to)
2. (intransitive) to be sufficient

References

Further reading

• “llegar” in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014.