/deˌxaɾ planˈtado/ lit. ‘leave someone planted’
Spanish idiom, colloquial. To not turn up for a date or meeting without telling the other person.
Draft Not yet checked by a native Spanish speaker.
How do people use Dejar plantado
?
Colloquial and used everywhere, for dates, friends and business meetings alike: “me dejó plantado”, “no me dejes plantado”. It also covers the extreme case of being jilted, as in “la novia lo dejó plantado en el altar”. The person who waited goes in as me, te, lo or la.
Also said dejar a alguien plantado, dar plantón
Dejar plantado
in real sentences
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Me dejó plantada; ¡lo estuve esperando toda la noche!
He stood me up; I waited all evening for him!
Tatoeba, sentence by Alba, translation by Dejo, CC BY 2.0 FR
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La novia lo dejó plantado en el altar.
The bride left him standing at the altar.
Tatoeba, sentence by nancy, CC BY 2.0 FR
Where does Dejar plantado
come from?
The picture is someone left standing in one spot so long they seem to have taken root, since plantar means to plant. English Wiktionary says “dar plantón” grew out of this phrase. The oldest use I found is in an 1851 Spanish translation of Alexander Pope’s The Rape of the Lock on Wikisource, whose biography of Pope says he left Voltaire “plantado” in his drawing room. That’s only the earliest one I saw, not a recorded first use.
Mistakes learners make with Dejar plantado
Forgetting that plantado agrees with the person left waiting. A woman says “me dejó plantada”, and a group says “nos dejaron plantados”.
Other Spanish idioms like Dejar plantado
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?
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