acacia

Forms

acacia f (plural acacias)^[1] Medieval texts spell it acaçia as well as acacia.^[2][3] The Academy preferred the Greek-style stress acacía from 1780 to 1803;^[4][1] acasia, probably an Andalusian form, appears in the Seville editions of the Spanish Guy de Chauliac (1498) and was listed by the Academy from 1817 to 1884.^[3] Rustic alcacia is recorded on the Ebro in Navarre and arcacia in La Laguna, Tenerife.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin acacia (“the acacia tree; its gum”), a learned word in Castilian.^{[5][6][7][4][1]} The Latin word is from Ancient Greek ἀκακία (akakía), the name of a thorny Egyptian tree, the gum arabic tree.^[5][8][9]

The same Latin word was taken into Portuguese acácia and Italian acacia; popular forms of it are gaggia and French cassie, names of the sweet acacia.^[10][11]

Wiktionary derives the Greek name from ἀκή (akḗ, “point”), after the thorns, as the Academy's dictionary did from 1884.^[1][12][13] Beekes thinks it is probably a Pre-Greek word; he sees no reason for an Eastern origin and finds a proposed link with a Coptic word for “dark” unconvincing.^[14] Wiktionary's Greek entry, however, takes it from Coptic, with the initial vowel modelled on ἄκανθα (ákantha, “thorn”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Spanish Moamín, a treatise on hunting birds dated 1250 and preserved in a copy from the second half of the 13th century, where acaçia is a drug in a remedy for falcons: e de la acaçia peso de V granos de trigo “and of acacia, the weight of five grains of wheat”.^[15][16] The sense there is the astringent substance obtained from the fruit of the tree.^[16]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages the word was mainly a drug name in medical texts: Alfonso de Palencia (1490) uses it for the juice pressed from the fruit.^[5][3][15] Andrés Laguna, the translator of Dioscorides (died 1560), uses it for an Egyptian tree.^[5] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1726) gives both the thorny tree and a pharmacists' name for the juice of wild sloes.^[17]

From 1817 the Academy listed further kinds, among them acacia falsa and acacia rosa.^[18][19] From 1884 it classed the tree among the leguminous plants that yield gum arabic.^[12] Today the commonest acacia in Spain is the false acacia or locust tree, a North American species planted along avenues.^[20][7] In the Americas the name passed to other trees and shrubs: the flame tree (flamboyán) in Venezuela, and other species in Mexico, Central America, the Antilles and Chile.^[7][21] The rare guacia, recorded only by the Academy from 1843, may be an American alteration of the word under the influence of the many Americanisms in gua-.^[5]

Timeline

• 1250 – the Moamín names acaçia as a drug for hunting birds (copy of the second half of the 13th century).^[15][22]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario uses it for the juice of the fruit;^[23] Corominas's first record.^[5][6]
• 1498 – the Seville translation of Guy de Chauliac's surgery has the form acasia.^[3]
• 1560 – Laguna (died that year) uses it as the name of an Egyptian tree.^[5]
• 1726 – Autoridades defines the thorny tree and the pharmacists' sloe juice.^[17]
• 1780–1803 – the Academy stresses it acacía.^[3]
• 1843 – the Academy records guacia as another name of the acacia.^[5]
• 1866 – first record from the Americas, in Bogotá.^[23]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology for the first time.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. acacia: a tree or shrub of the mimosa family, sometimes thorny, with compound leaves, fragrant flowers in hanging clusters and pods; some species yield goma arábiga.^[7][1][20]
2. The wood of the acacia.^[7][24]
3. (medicine) An astringent substance obtained from the unripe fruit of the Egyptian acacia or of the blackthorn.^[7]
4. (Venezuela) The flamboyán, the flame tree.^[7][21]
5. acacia blanca or falsa acacia: the false acacia or locust tree, a thorny North American species planted in avenues in Europe.^[7][20]

Related words

• Latin acacia
• guacia

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. acacia
3. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. acacia
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 26
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. acacia
7. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. acacia
8. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies)
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía
14. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. acacia
16. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. acacia
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández
20. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
21. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
22. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
23. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
24. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial