# Historical use of the term "desperado" **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 24, 2021, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605 "2021-12-24T22:05:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2021, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/1 "2021-12-24T22:05:09Z")
Essentially, Spanish for “someone who does risky and extreme acts”; or colloquially “someone with nothing to lose”. Was this more or less coined by Old West fiction writers, or was it actually in use in the 19th century West? ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2021, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/2 "2021-12-24T22:35:55Z")
Some guy on reddit claims to know something about it: [https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/7fjegg/desperado\_it\_looks\_like\_a\_spanish\_word\_but/](https://www.reddit.com/r/etymology/comments/7fjegg/desperado_it_looks_like_a_spanish_word_but/) He cites the entry in the Oxford dictionary for desperado which required a log-in to view it. > [@](#): > > **Origin:** early 17th century - pseudo-Spanish alteration of the obsolete noun desperate. Both desperate and desperado originally denoted a person in despair or in a desperate situation, hence someone made reckless by despair. > > It looks like a Spanish word, but desperado is almost certainly one hundred per cent English—a pseudo-Spanish alteration of desperate (Late Middle English), probably created to sound more impressive and emphatic. Between the early 17th and early 18th centuries a desperate was a desperate or reckless person, just like a desperado. An earlier meaning was ‘a person in despair or in a desperate situation’, which developed into ‘a person made reckless by despair’. In both senses desperate is earlier than desperado, but the more exotic form ousted the original. The ultimate origin of desperate is Latin desperare ‘to deprive of hope’, the source of despair (Middle English). ETA: Another online source, seems to agree that it is a mock-Spanish word of (American) English origin, going back some years. > **[desperado | Etymology of desperado by etymonline](https://www.etymonline.com/word/desperado)** > > DESPERADO: "a person in despair;" 1640s, "a desperate or reckless man;" mock-Spanish version of desperate (n.)… See origin and meaning of desperado. > [@](#): > > # desperado (n.) > > c. 1600, “a person in despair;” 1640s, “a desperate or reckless man;” mock-Spanish version of desperate (n.) “reckless criminal” (1560s), from Latin desperatus “given up, despaired of,” past participle of desperare (see [despair](https://www.etymonline.com/word/despair?ref=etymonline_crossreference#etymonline_v_5662) (v.)). There was an adjective desperado in Old Spanish, meaning “out of hope, desperate,” but apparently it never was used as a noun and it probably has nothing to do with the English word. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2021, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/3 "2021-12-24T23:50:34Z")
Without the context of American West (perhaps Mexican) outlaws, what was the historical motivation for “spanishifying” the word? Who were the desperados Tudor English were referring to? I’m having a hard time picturing Eli Wallach as a foppish highwayman. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 12:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/4 "2021-12-25T00:15:30Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > Without the context of American West (perhaps Mexican) outlaws, what was the historical motivation for “spanishifying” the word? The sources I cited just above don’t seem to address that question. I speculated that it’s an American coinage, perhaps due to American West influence. But – the cites suggest that the usage goes back farther than that. Could it perhaps have gone back as far as the days of the Anglo-Spanish wars of the 16th century? That is, it could be derived from actual European Spanish Spanish, not Mexican Spanish? Of tangential interest: I found it interesting that the English words “tornado” and “volcano” look and sound a lot more Spanish than the actual Spanish words, “el tornád” and “el volcán”. (Is “tornád” right? I’m seeing various other words in on-line English-Spanish dictionaries.) ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/5 "2021-12-25T00:29:37Z")
If it dates back to Tudor times, it may be faux-Italian, rather than faux-Spanish. Or simply faux-generic-Romance-language. Shakespeare’s work had a lot of Italian influences. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/6 "2021-12-25T00:38:44Z")
> [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](#): > > what was the historical motivation for “spanishifying” the word? To make the speaker seem more well-educated and well-traveled. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/7 "2021-12-25T03:49:30Z")
A quick search of [newspapers.com](http://newspapers.com) finds the word was very rare in the U.S. in the 18th century, with more usages coming up from British newspapers. Each decade thereafter brings up more hits, although that’s probably an artifact of how many early papers have been scanned. Even so, the hits increase from a handful to the tens of thousands decade by decade over the 19th century. However, the word was used in exactly the same way from the beginning. You’d have to go to British sources to find historic motivation. I see no evidence that it was considered a particularly high-toned word, though. It reads like a standard identifier. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/8 "2021-12-25T04:15:41Z")
In any case it is an excellent song. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/9 "2021-12-25T06:30:29Z")
Maybe it was formed along the lines of “renegado” (a legitimate Spanish word that entered English and then morphed to “renegade”). ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 10:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/10 "2021-12-25T10:42:35Z")
_Desperado_ appears in the dictionary of Spain’s Real Academia with the same meaning as in English, but a much more commonly used word is _desesperado_ (note extra “es”), which just means desperate or exasperated and has nothing to do with outlaws. Also, both Spanish words are adjectives, unlike the English desperado. _Forajido_ is the usual translation for outlaw, and the etymology of that word is kind of interesting: _fuera exigido_ (“ordered out”). _Fuera de (la) ley_ is sometimes used, and it’s the literal translation of outlaw (“outside of (the) law”). It’s also interesting that the Cambridge dictionary includes in its definition of outlaw “a person who (…) lives separately from the other parts of society” and Merriam Webster doesn’t. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 11:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/11 "2021-12-25T11:04:22Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > Is “tornád” right? No, it is not. The Spanish word for tornado is _tornado_. From the Latin/Italian _tornare_, that is: to turn, to revolve, to spin. _Volcano_ is not Spanish, it is Italian. The Spanish word is indeed _volcán_, as you wrote. And the Spanish word for desperado is _desesperado_ (although @alovem is right in pointing out that the Diccionario de la Real Academia accepts [desperado](https://dle.rae.es/desperado) as a Spanish word, but writes it is desus., that is, no longer common), from _esperanza_, hope, which gives _esperanzado_, hopefull, and the prefix _des_-, negation: hopeless: _desesperanzado_. But I guess two es - es syllables in succession plus the unpronounzable “_za_” (actually it is very easy to pronounce, but English speaking students of Spanish often take a long time to accept that the “z” is just pronounced like the “th” in “think” and the “a” is a simple, short A) are too much for English tongues and ears\*, so one _es_ and the _za_ get thrown overboard. \* The linguistic version of hearts and minds: if you don’t win them, you lose them. ---
**Author:** ![Bootb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e19b73/32.png) [@Bootb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bootb)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/12 "2021-12-25T15:50:07Z")
The dates in the quotes cited by @ [Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid) make me wonder if perhaps the word was somehow inspired by the Spanish Armada. ---
**Author:** ![PatrickLondon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/patricklondon/32/4422_2.png) [@PatrickLondon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickLondon)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/13 "2021-12-25T16:32:08Z")
I have a nagging memory that at some point in the 17th, or maybe 18th century, there was a tendency to use some Spanish-sounding word as a nickname for some social or political group of young men, but it’s vague. It could have been a fashion, maybe from the time of deadly rivalry with Spain, and of the Armada, or later in the Jacobean period of greater fluidity in relations with Spain. Or something in Restoration comedy? ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/14 "2021-12-25T16:43:34Z")
> [@alovem](#): > > It’s also interesting that the Cambridge dictionary includes in its definition of outlaw “a person who (…) lives separately from the other parts of society” and Merriam Webster doesn’t. As one ought, as they are living _outside the protection_ of the law. Meaning, they are fair game for anyone of murderous, but otherwise lawful, inclination. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/15 "2021-12-25T18:49:37Z")
I’m inclined to agree with whoever unthread speculated an Italian inspiration. If Shakespeare is any indication, the Tudors were infatuated with Italian stereotypes of romantic bravado and angst. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/16 "2021-12-25T19:26:56Z")
> [@hogarth](#): > > Maybe it was formed along the lines of “renegado” (a legitimate Spanish word that entered English and then morphed to “renegade”). I think this is the most likely explanation. I don’t think that the changing relationships between England and Spain had much to do with it. Linguistic influences from French and to a lesser extent Spanish, had little to with hostile or friendly relations. Despite the Spanish Armada, etc. Queen Elizabeth I spoke good Spanish by all reports, and so did many members of her court. There were usually Spanish Ambassadors in England and English ambassadors in Spain except when the countries were actively at war. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/17 "2021-12-25T22:18:13Z")
> [@Bootb](#): > > The dates in the quotes cited by @ [Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid) make me wonder if perhaps the word was somehow inspired by the Spanish Armada. Seems possible to me. Remember that England fought with Spain for many decades. Even in North America a couple hundred years later, Spain had the Florida and California/southwest parts of the continent until the British colonists/Americans took the areas over. And the English had a habit of naming ‘bad’ things after their foreign enemies. Like calling syphilis the ‘French disease’, referring to the ‘Spanish pox’, Welshing on a deal, etc. (I presume other languages do similar things.) ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2021, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/18 "2021-12-25T23:41:36Z")
If the first good usage is from 1640, that’s a full half century after the Armada. There had been another minor war in the 1620s that would make a better impetus but peace had broken out by 1640. Spain and England were never on good terms in the 17th century when they were competing for interests in what is now America, so using a Spanish term for enemies of the state, which is basically what desperadoes were, is plausible. Speculation about its origin at this time and place needs much more evidence than that vagueness, IMO. ---
**Author:** ![Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmer_j.fudd/32/1211_2.png) [@Elmer\_J.Fudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmer_J.Fudd)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2021, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/19 "2021-12-26T01:08:49Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > If the first good usage is from 1640, that’s a full half century after the Armada. Its use to describe a reckless criminal actually predates the Armada (1560s). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [December 26, 2021, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605/20 "2021-12-26T02:28:30Z")
While Etymonline is usually a reliable site, I can’t find any independent source that substantiates the 1560 date. All the other dictionaries label this usage as from the 17th century and my compact OED puts it as 1647. I could be missing a proper cite and would like to see it if so, but I haven’t read an actual sentence using the word in the sense we’re talking about earlier than 1647. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/historical-use-of-the-term-desperado/956605.md?page=2)