mariachi

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish mariachi, also mariache, a word of Mexican Spanish,^[2][3][4][5] recorded there from 1852 for an open-air entertainment with music and dancing.^[2] Etymonline notes that the 1898 “Diccionario de Mejicanismos” defines mariache as a fandango or village dance, and that the early Spanish examples refer to the dance rather than the music.^[4] Its further origin is uncertain.^[2][1] Merriam-Webster Unabridged and Webster's Third take it as perhaps an alteration of French mariage (“marriage”),^[3][6] and the 4th edition of the American Heritage Dictionary and Dictionary.com explain that the music is said to have been played at weddings in Jalisco.^[7][8] The OED instead finds it plausibly attributed to the extinct Uto-Aztecan language of the district of Cocula in Jalisco, where the music originated,^[2][4] and the 5th edition of the American Heritage Dictionary now has "perhaps from an indigenous language of Mexico".^[9] Wiktionary points out that the word was in use before the French intervention in Mexico, which undermines the French etymology.^[1] Etymonline adds that a place called Mariache existed in Sinaloa from the 19th century.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Mexican band of strolling musicians, also as an adjective for their music: by 1925, according to Etymonline.^[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged dates the word to 1927,^[3] and the OED's first quotation is from the magazine Travel in January 1929.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Mexican Spanish the word first named a popular dance or open-air festivity and only later the band that played for it;^[4][2] Etymonline says the dance became popular in Mexico around the 1890s.^[4] English took the word for the band, and soon also for one of its musicians and for the style of music.^[3][2] The adjective, as in mariachi music, is recorded from 1940.^[2] In 1934 Erna Fergusson wrote of "mariachi time", a quick and lively rhythm.^[4]

Timeline

• 1925 – a Mexican band of strolling musicians.^[4] Merriam-Webster Unabridged has 1927 and the OED 1929.^[3][2]
• 1940 – adjective, of mariachis or their music.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small band of Mexican street or itinerant musicians, usually singers, guitarists and violinists: A mariachi serenaded the couple at their table.^[3][10][2]
2. A musician in such a band.^[3][5]
3. The folk music played by such bands.^[3][2]

Adjective

1. Of or relating to mariachis or their music: a mariachi band.^[2]

Usage notes

The popular story that mariachi comes from French mariage because the bands played at weddings, sometimes linked with the French-backed Emperor Maximilian, is doubted by Etymonline, the OED and Wiktionary.^[4][2][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
5. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
7. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
8. ^ Dictionary.com Unabridged (2016), based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, New York: Random House
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
10. ^ Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins