zaherir

Somewhat disputed; according to the Royal Spanish Academy, from Old Spanish façerir, from *fazferir, from faz (“make!, do!”) +‎ ferir (“to hurt”). However, many etymologists have suggested that faz in fazferir could not have turned into za(z), even if it did convert into haz during the Spanish conversion of f to h and have suggested the word comes from Latin subferire (“to censor, reproach”) with za being a common corruption of the Latin sub- prefix, as seen in words such as zabullir (“to submerge”) (from Late Latin subbullīre (“to boil/submerge lighty”)) and zabucar (“to stir liquid”) (from Latin sub- (“below”) +‎ bucca (“mouth”)). Morphologically equivalent to haz (“make!, do!”) +‎ herir (“to hurt”).

• IPA^(key): (Spain) /θaeˈɾiɾ/
• IPA^(key): (Latin America, Philippines) /saeˈɾiɾ/
• Rhymes: -iɾ
• Syllabification: za‧he‧rir

zaherir (first-person singular present zahiero, first-person singular preterite zaherí, past participle zaherido)

1. to criticize severely, harshly (to the point of feeling humiliated or mortified)
   • 1911, Quintilian, Ignacio Rodríguez, Pedro Sandier, Instituciones Oratorias, Vol. 1, 333:

     Guardémonos siempre de zaherir.

     Let's always guard ourselves from criticizing severely.

• “zaherir”, 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