raig

Forms

raig m (plural raigs or rajos)^[1] The plural is raigs or rajos.^[1][2] Old Catalan wrote raig, rag and ray.^[3][4] Ray in the Vides de sants rosselloneses stands before a consonant and reflects the reduction of -ig before d- that colloquial speech still makes, often in Roussillon and normally in Mallorca.^[3][4] Dialect forms include Ibizan ratx, Menorcan rau, from a form raio with the loss of -i- usual on that island, ral or rail with a hypercorrect -l in the Vall de Lavansa and the south of Valencia, and rayo in Valencian and Balearic texts of the 16th and 17th centuries, which Coromines puts down partly to Mozarabic.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Catalan raig, which is inherited from Latin radius (“staff; spoke of a wheel; ray of light”).^{[3][5][6][7][1]} It is a doublet of radi, borrowed from the same Latin word.^[1][6]

The same Latin word is Occitan rai, French rai, Italian raggio, Spanish rayo, Portuguese raio and Romanian rază.^[8][1]

De Vaan finds the Latin word without a clear etymology.^[9] He rejects the link with rādīx (“root”) proposed by Walde–Hofmann and Pokorny, since the meanings are completely different.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Llull's Llibre de contemplació (1272) speaks of the sun spreading its rays (rags) over plains, mountains and valleys.^[4] In the Llibre del gentil he says that God gave the sun the power to pass its rays through glass without breaking it.^[3][10] The first sense was thus the ray of light, as in the Vides de sants rosselloneses, where un ray devinal translates Latin radius divinitus.^[3][7]

Semantic evolution

By comparison of rays of light with streams of liquid, the word was applied early to a jet of water: the Tirant describes a silver statue of a woman from whose breasts ran un raig d'aygua molt clara.^[3] The cookery book of Robert de Nola (1520) calls for un raig de oli.^[4] The spoke of a wheel, a Latin sense, appears in texts of the 16th and 17th centuries.^[3] In the far south raig de Sant Martí is the rainbow.^[3]

The DCVB records further senses: a mass of things falling or moving fast, a draught of air, a sudden attack of illness, and, in texts of little lexical purity, lightning.^[5] Fabra's dictionary of 1932 defines the ray of physics and lists cathode rays, beta rays and Röntgen rays.^[11]

The verb rajar is recorded in 1460, in Roig, from Latin radiare.^[6] Rajolí “trickle” is recorded about 1900, in Verdaguer.^[6] The learned radi entered in 1803, radiar and radiació in 1868.^[6]

Timeline

• 1272 – Llull's Llibre de contemplació has sos rags, the sun's rays.^[4]
• 1324 – the earliest raig in CICA, in the Llibre de totes maneres de potatges de menjar (copy of 1450–1474).^[12]
• 1460 – the Spill of Jaume Roig has rays shining out of a lamp hidden in a pot; first record of rajar.^[4][6]
• 1460 – the Tirant has the moonlight, los raigs de la luna.^[4]
• 1520 – Robert de Nola's cookery book has un raig de oli.^[4]
• 1575 – Onofre Pou glosses los braços o rayos of a wheel as Latin radius.^[3]
• 1803 – first record of the learned radi.^[6]
• 1932 – Fabra's Diccionari general lists Röntgen rays.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A ray or beam: a line of light radiating from a luminous body: Un raig de sol li queia a la cara.^[2][5]
2. (physics) The line along which light or another form of radiant energy travels; a stream of particles moving along one line, as in raigs X or raigs gamma.^[2][7]
3. (figurative) A glimmer, a touch of something.^[2]
4. A jet or stream of liquid not held by any solid, such as the one that runs from a font or a càntir.^[2][5]
5. A spoke of a wheel.^[2][5][1]
6. A rapid succession or mass of things.^[5]

Word family

• enrajar
• rajar
• rajada
• rajaploma
• rajolí

Related words

• radi
• radiar
• irradiar
• rai
• Latin radius
• Spanish rayo

Usage notes

The DIEC2 heads a second noun raig meaning a raft, a variant of rai.^[2] The DCVB keeps the raft in this article and relates it to Occitan a rai “in floods”, while the Consolat de Mar already speaks of a ship meeting algun raig de fusta, a raft of timber.^[5][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Institut d'Estudis Catalans (2007), Diccionari de la llengua catalana, 2nd ed. (DIEC2), Barcelona: Edicions 62; online edition with later updates, https://dlc.iec.cat, p. s.v. raig
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 7, 51
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. raig
5. ^ a b c d e f g Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. raig
6. ^ a b c d e f g Bruguera, Jordi (1996), Diccionari etimològic, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, p. 775
7. ^ a b c Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. raig
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. radius
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Nou glossari general lul·lià (NGGL), Centre de Documentació Ramon Llull, Universitat de Barcelona, https://nggl.ub.edu, p. s.v. raig
11. ^ a b Fabra, Pompeu (1932), Diccionari general de la llengua catalana, Barcelona: Llibreria Catalònia, p. s.v. raig
12. ^ Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. raig