Different uses of "con sendos"?

Question

So I was reading on espndeportes.com about how one NBA team beat another one. Here was the headline:

"Con sendos triples Cavs somete a Bobcats."

"Triple" is the Spanish word for a three pointer, but I wasn't familiar with the word "sendos" so I looked it up on various Spanish dictionary sites. The primary meaning is "one each." So, it would seem that this phrase means "With each one scoring a three-pointer, the Cavs subdue the Bobcats" But the problem is that not everyone on the Cavs scored a three pointer.

So I'm wondering, does "con sendos" in this case mean something more like "with an abundance of three-pointers"? Out of all of the online dictionaries I consulted, there was only one other meaning for sendos, which was "great or abundant."

Or, is this a case of sloppy Spanish?

Thanks for the help.

Answer 1

Hi diongrosse!

Welcome to the forum!

Wow! I'm really stunned because I find RAE's definition to be very imprecise in this case. It's hard to understand!

adj. pl. Uno o una para cada cual de dos o más personas o cosas.

Huh? This definition is a bit confusing... isn't it?

You see, sendos is a pretty snobbish word, and it's usually misused (as it's misused in your example).

Sendos means "each one with his ..." for more than one person ( normally two people). This causes that some people think that "sendos" is a cool intelectual word for saying "two".

I bet what the writer meant is: "With a couple of" triples, Cavs somete a Bobcats.

Well used, with distributive sense:

Marta y Toni llevaban sendos gorros de lana = Marta y Toni, llevaban cada uno un gorro de lana.

Incorrectly used, meaning two (or more):

Marta tiene sendos lunares en el rostro = Marta tiene un par de lunares en el rostro.

This link tells you more about it.

Good question, diongrosse!

Answer 2

I looked at the article; the implication here is that Cleveland scored many 3 pointers, 10 of 21 in fact. So it is as though sendos in this case means "un montón".

The RAE gives us:

sendos, das.

(Del lat. sing?los, acus. de -li).

1. adj. pl. Uno o una para cada cual de dos o más personas o cosas.

10 is a lot more that two or more! However, I do think that's the sense of how the word is used in this article on ESPN Deportes.