Llover

Llover is a Spanish intransitive verb meaning to rain. It is primarily used impersonally to describe weather, with no explicit subject. In everyday Spanish, it is standard to use the third-person singular in the present tense, as in “llueve” (it is raining). Other tenses exist: “llovió” (it rained), “llovía” (it was raining), and “lloverá” (it will rain).

Grammatical notes: although the infinitive is llover, the verb forms are mainly found in weather expressions and are typically used without an overt subject. The gerund is “lloviendo,” and the past participle is “llovido.” The present subjunctive is “llueva.” The verb is often paired with weather predicates such as “está lloviendo” (it is raining) or “llovía mucho” (it was raining a lot).

Usage and idioms: common phrases include “llover a cántaros” (to rain heavily) and “llover sobre mojado” (to rain on the already wet ground, meaning to worsen an already bad situation). Related verbs include “lloviznar” (to drizzle) and the antonymic concept “nevar” (to snow) in discussions of precipitation.

Etymology and variations: llover shares its semantic field with “lluvia” (rain), both derived from a common root related to rain in Latin. The word is standard across Spanish dialects, with similar usage in both Peninsular and Latin American varieties.