ull

Forms

ull m (plural ulls)^[1] Old Catalan wrote uls (in the Homilies d'Organyà), uyl, uyll and uylls, and often with initial v- or uu-: Jaume I has los meus uuls, a document of Estagell of 1384 a vuyll, Bernat Metge los vulls.^[2][3][4] The word is pronounced with /ʎ/ in most of the language, but with a semivowel, ui, in the Balearics and in much of eastern Catalan east of the Llobregat, except the Alt Empordà and the south, which keep apart the old palatal from Latin -c'l- and the /l/ from -ll-.^[2][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin oclus (“eye”), the contracted form of classical Latin oculus (“eye”).^[2][5][6][1] It is a doublet of òcul, a borrowing from the Latin word.^[1]

The same Latin word is Occitan uèlh, French œil, Spanish ojo, Portuguese olho, Italian occhio and Romanian ochi.^[1][7] Old Aragonese, which diphthongised the vowel before a palatal, as happened in Catalan, had uello, also spelt with v- in documents of 1287.^[2]

Coromines explains the Old Catalan forms with v- as an outcome parallel to vuit from Latin octō: the diphthong of the stressed vowel before the palatal could end either in ⟨vull⟩ or in ⟨ull⟩.^[2]

Latin ⟨oculus⟩ is from *okelos, from the root *h₃ekʷ- (“eye; to see”), whose other descendants include ὤψ (ṓps, “eye, face”) and akìs (“eye”).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Coromines and the GDLC date the word to the origins of the language, in the Homilies d'Organyà, where CICA finds the plural uls.^[2][6][3] Llull's Blaquerna repeats the Gospel saying that it is better to enter paradise with one eye and one foot than hell with two, and the Llibre de contemplació calls Christ's humanity an intellectual eye.^[9] The first sense was the organ of sight.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Most of the figurative uses of today were already usual in Latin, as were the uses for things that recall an eye by position or shape: the hole of a nail, the arch of a bridge, the spot on a peacock's tail, the bud of a plant.^[2] Medieval Catalan used ull for watchful attention (Eiximenis calls the councillors ulls del bé comú in 1381), for the power of discernment, for the heart of cabbages and lettuces, and for the evil eye, as in the Spill;^[10] a ull meant “plainly, before one's eyes”.^[10]

The DCVB lists the holes and openings called ull: the eye of a needle, the hole for a tool's handle, the mesh of a net, the holes in bread or cheese.^[5] Among the derivatives, ullada and ullera are recorded in the 14th century, antull in the 15th, ullprendre in 1460, ullal “canine tooth”, so called because it lies under the eye, in 1505, and ullblau and ullnegre in Fabra (1932).^[11]

Timeline

• 1175–1224 – uls in the Homilies d'Organyà, the earliest record in CICA.^[3]
• 1250–1299 – uyl and uyls in the Catalan Diàlegs of St Gregory (copy of 1340).^[4]
• 1261–1271 – ulls in the Furs de València.^[12]
• 1288–1289 – uyll in Llull's Llibre de meravelles.^[13]
• 1381 – Eiximenis calls the city councillors ulls del bé comú.^[10]
• 1384 – a vuyll in a document of Estagell.^[2]
• 1460 – the Spill has ull for the evil eye; first record of ullprendre.^[10][11]
• 1490 – the learned ocular in the Tirant.^[11]
• 1505 – first record of ullal.^[11]
• 1932 – Fabra records ullblau and ullnegre.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. eye: the organ of sight, which receives images and sends them to the brain through the optic nerve: Té els ulls verds.^[14][6]
2. (usually plural) Sight, the look; a watchful gaze: No li treu els ulls de sobre.^[6][5]
3. (figurative) The faculty of understanding; the knack of seeing things as they are.^[6][5]
4. (plural) Spectacles.^[6][5]
5. A hole or opening: the eye of a needle, the hole for a tool's handle, the mesh of a net, the holes in bread or cheese.^[5][15]
6. The heart of a cabbage or lettuce.^[10][5]

Word family

• antull
• reüll
• ullada
• ullal
• ullar
• ullera
• ullet
• ullprendre
• ullprenedor
• desullar
• ullblau
• ullnegre

Related words

• ocular
• òcul
• binocle
• inocular
• Latin oculus
• Occitan uèlh
• Spanish ojo

Usage notes

The DCVB and the NGGL also record an old indefinite adjective ull, feminine ulla, “any, none”, of separate origin, from Latin ullus: Llull's Doctrina pueril has no avies ulla cosa que menjasses “you had nothing to eat”.^[16][9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. 8, 965
3. ^ a b c Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. uls
4. ^ a b Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. uyl
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. ull
6. ^ a b c d e f Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. ull
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. oculus
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Nou glossari general lul·lià (NGGL), Centre de Documentació Ramon Llull, Universitat de Barcelona, https://nggl.ub.edu, p. s.v. ull
10. ^ a b c d e Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. ull
11. ^ a b c d e Bruguera, Jordi (1996), Diccionari etimològic, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, p. 935
12. ^ Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. ulls
13. ^ Torruella, Joan; Pérez Saldanya, Manuel; Martines, Josep (dirs.), Corpus Informatitzat del Català Antic (CICA), https://www.cica.cat, p. s.v. uyll
14. ^ 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. ull
15. ^ Labèrnia, Pere (1839–1840), Diccionari de la llengua catalana ab la correspondencia castellana y llatina, 2 vols., Barcelona, p. s.v. ull
16. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. ull 2