de balde

Galician

Attested since circa 1300. Ultimately from Andalusian Arabic بَاطِل (báṭil), from Arabic بَاطِل (bāṭil, “vain”)

gratis, for free
Synonym: gratis
(dated) uselessly, in vain
Synonyms: en balde, en van
- c. 1295, R. Lorenzo, editor, La traducción gallega de la Crónica General y de la Crónica de Castilla, Ourense: I.E.O.P.F, page 146:
  Et, poys que nos auemos sofrido gram lazeyra et estamos en estado qual nũca coydamos, loado a Deus, se assy o perdessemos, toda nossa lazeyra seria passada de balde
  And, since we have suffered great pain and still we are in a state that we would never have thought, praised be God, if we so lose it all of our sufferings would have been in vain

Seoane, Ernesto Xosé González; Granja, María Álvarez de la; Agrelo, Ana Isabel Boullón (2006–2022), “balde”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios do galego medieval [Dictionary of dictionaries of Medieval Galician] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
Barreiro, Xavier Varela; Guinovart, Xavier Gómez (2006–2018), “de balde”, in Corpus Xelmírez: corpus lingüístico da Galicia medieval [Corpus Xelmírez: linguistic corpus of Medieval Galicia] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
Antón Santamarina, editor (2006–2013), “balde”, in Dicionario de Dicionarios da lingua galega [Dictionary of Dictionaries of the Galician language] (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
Antón Santamarina, Ernesto X. González Seoane, María Álvarez de la Granja, editors (2003–2018), “de balde”, in Tesouro informatizado da lingua galega (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega
Rosario Álvarez Blanco, editor (2014–2024), “de balde”, in Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (in Galician), Santiago de Compostela: Instituto da Lingua Galega, →ISSN

de balde (idiomatic)