pinto

Etymology

It is borrowed from Spanish pinto (“painted, spotted, mottled”), in its American Spanish use,^[2][3][4][5] recorded in Spanish from before 1250 and now archaic and regional there.^[2] The Spanish adjective is from Vulgar Latin *pīnctus, an unattested variant of Latin pictus (“painted”),^[2][3][6][7] the past participle of pingō (“to paint”),^[3][6][7] from Proto-Indo-European *peig-.^[7] The same Latin verb is the source of paint, and Merriam-Webster also refers the Vulgar Latin form to its entry for pint.^[6][8][4] For the first sense, a people with mottled skin, the OED also compares an American Spanish pinto meaning affected with pinta, the skin disease.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

A member of any of the peoples of southern Mexico said to have mottled skin: 1846, in The Times; this sense is now historical.^[2] The usual sense, a piebald or skewbald horse, is recorded from 1860, first in the Marysville Appeal in California.^[2][3][6][4]

Semantic evolution

The horse sense began in the American West: the OED and Merriam-Webster label it originally or chiefly American and western,^[2][4] and Collins labels the word American and Canadian.^[5] The adjective, of a horse having a mottled coat, is recorded from 1865 in the OED and 1867 in Barnhart.^[2][3] The pinto bean (1916 in Etymonline) is named for its mottled seeds;^[6][9] since 1918 the bean has also been called simply a pinto.^[2] Merriam-Webster separately records pinto (1865) as another name for the disease pinta, from the American Spanish phrase mal del pinto.^[4]

Timeline

• before 1250 – Spanish pinto, painted, mottled.^[2]
• 1846 – a member of a people of southern Mexico with mottled skin.^[2]
• 1860 – a piebald or skewbald horse.^[2][3][4][6]
• 1865 – adjective, of a horse: mottled, piebald.^[2]
• 1916 – pinto bean.^[6]
• 1918 – pinto, short for pinto bean.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chiefly North America) A horse or pony with irregular patches of white and another colour; a piebald or skewbald horse: She rode a pinto in the parade.^[5][4][2]
2. A pinto bean.^[2][9]
3. (historical) A member of any of the peoples of southern Mexico described as having mottled skin.^[2]

Adjective

1. (chiefly North America) Of a horse: marked with patches of white; piebald or skewbald.^[5][2][9]

Word family

• pinto bean

Related words

• paint
• pinta
• pintado
• pint
• picture
• depict

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Barnhart, Robert K. (1988), The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology
4. ^ a b c d e f g Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
5. ^ a b c d Collins English Dictionary (2023), Glasgow: HarperCollins
6. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ a b c The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
8. ^ Partridge, Eric (1966), Origins: A Short Etymological Dictionary of Modern English, 4th ed., London: Routledge & Kegan Paul
9. ^ a b c Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press