acostumbé

Acostumbré is the first-person singular preterite form of the Spanish verb acostumbrar. It is used to express that the speaker or another person was caused to become accustomed to a habit, behavior, or routine in the past. The action is transitive, so it requires an indirect object or a noun phrase identifying what was habituated to what. For example: “Ayer acostumbré a mis hijos a levantarse temprano” means “Yesterday I accustomed my children to waking up early.”

A closely related form is acostombrarse (with a reflexive pronoun), which means to become accustomed to something. Its preterite is me acostumbré, te acostumbraste, se acostumbró, etc., as in “Me acostumbré a vivir en la ciudad” (“I got used to living in the city”). The distinction is that acostumbrar is transitive (causing someone or something to adapt), while acostombrarse describes the subject’s own change of habit.

Etymology traces acostumbrar to costumbre, meaning “custom” or “habit,” which itself comes from Latin consuetudo. The sense of making someone adopt a habit gradually developed into the modern usage of acostumbrar and acostumbrarse.

Common usage notes: acostumbrar can take a person or a thing as the direct object (acostumbrar a alguien a hacer algo). The related noun costumbre can appear in related terms such as acostumbramiento (the process of becoming accustomed) or familiar phrases about routines. The forms are regular in conjugation, following standard -ar verb patterns.

See also: costumbre, acostumbrado, acostumbrarse, acostumbrar.