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I have translated summer into Spanish. What is the difference between "estío" and "verano"?

RAE says that estío is verano.

Hypothesis: estío is used in poetry, verano in daily life.

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    Native Spanish speaker learning new Spanish words ✋
    – mgarciaisaia
    Oct 24, 2016 at 16:04
  • Spanish is my first language, and I have never heard of "estío". Use "verano".
    – user14048
    Oct 24, 2016 at 17:32
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    Latin distinguished between veranus (good weather) and aestivum (hot season). After, prima vera (first summer) was separated, leaving the word veranus to refer to the early months of summer and aestivum for the final months.
    – Rodrigo
    Oct 24, 2016 at 20:03
  • Interestingly enough, English uses "vernal" as an adjective for spring, as in "vernal equinox".
    – Robert Columbia
    Feb 13, 2021 at 13:13

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Just to complement fedorqui's answer, it is interesting to note that when you use "summer" as an adjective (as in "summer season"), in Spanish the adjective estival is more used than veraniego/a:

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So we can say época estival, it does not sound too formal. But between estío and verano as nouns, I agree with fedorqui.

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    It's a bit more used, but not by a lot. It's hovering around 58-60%: books.google.com/ngrams/… I feel like that's mainly in writing. I don't think I've ever heard estival in casual speech.
    – user0721090601
    Oct 24, 2016 at 12:01
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Yes, you are right: they are absolute synonyms. And you are again right saying estío is commonly used in poetry: you would not find anybody using such word in a random, common conversation.

It is interesting to see the evolution of the usage of these words along time:

enter image description here

A quick look to the list of books using estío reveals a lot of poetry.

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VERANO is the commonly used word and ESTÍO is a very unusual way to refer to the summer, and its use is more appropriate for literature or poetry.

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  • True indeed. I am a Spaniard, born and raised there. Never in my live have I ever met someone who used the word ESTÍO. I think that it would be hard to find even in modern literature.
    – Javier Quevedo
    Oct 24, 2016 at 13:50
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Estío and verano are synonyms but verano is more usual and colloquial. Estío is more literary.

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  • Hola Joaquin y bienvenido a Spanish Language. Nótese que la respuesta actual es apenas un comentario. Intenta editarla para indicar referencias, ejemplos, etc y que así sea de mayor utilidad.
    – fedorqui
    Oct 24, 2016 at 11:11

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