desmayar

Borrowed from Old French esmaier (“to perturb”), from Latin *magāre, from Frankish *magan, from Proto-Germanic *maganą. Cognate with English dismay although a false friend. Compare Portuguese desmaiar. Doublet and related to esmayao "to be hungry, famished", from esmayar.

• Rhymes: -aɾ
• Syllabification: des‧ma‧yar

desmayar (first-person singular present desmayo, first-person singular preterite desmayé, past participle desmayado)

1. (transitive) to cause a person to faint
2. (intransitive, figurative) to dishearten
   • 1877, Benito Pérez Galdós, Gloria:

     Jamás desmayó en sus deberes de católico: jamás se dejó llevar a extremos de sutilezas y enrevesados simbolismos.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

3. (pronominal) to faint (lose consciousness)

• Desmayar is a false friend, and does not mean dismay. Spanish equivalents are shown in the "Translations" section of the English entry dismay.

• (obsolete) esmayar

• “desmayar”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10