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agalla

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word agalla

agalla1 oak gall

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1236–1246 Berceo, El duelo de la Virgen, in an 18th-century copy
Inherited from
Latin galla via Old Spanish
Ultimate origin
Latin galla
Etymology tree of agalla1
inherited borrowed derived
Latin galla
Spanish agalla
English gall

Pronunciation

  • /aˈɡaʝa/, [aˈɣ̞a.ʝa], /aˈɡaʎa/[1]

Forms

agalla f (plural agallas)[1] The older form galla was still used by Alfonso de Palencia and Gutierre de Cetina.[2] Variants are algalla, perhaps influenced by the Arabisms in al-, and agaya, the form of the areas with yeísmo and of Judeo-Spanish.[3]

Etymology

The word for the oak gall is inherited from Old Spanish agalla, inherited from Latin galla (“gall-nut, oak apple”).[2][4][5][1] Its first form was galla, which became the present form when part of the article fused with it.[2][3] With an unstressed suffix it gave gállara, already in Berceo and still used in Soria.[2]

The same Latin word is Catalan gala, Occitan gala, French galle and Italian galla.[6][7][8] Coromines notes that the single ⟨l⟩ of the Catalan form is unexplained, and suggests it may be a Mozarabic form.[7] The REW holds that Portuguese galha was borrowed from this word; the DCECH grants that it may be a Castilianism but thinks it more likely to come from a Latin adjective *galleus, which also gave Portuguese galho (“branch”).[6][2]

The origin of the Latin noun is unknown: the OLD marks it doubtful.[9] Wiktionary lists two hypotheses, a Germanic source and Proto-Indo-European *gel- (“to form into a ball”).[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Berceo the gall is the type of a worthless thing: in the Duelo de la Virgen Mary says that the Jews did not give tres agallas “three galls” for her cries, and in the Milagros the devils could not take valient una agalla “one gall's worth” from a soul.[10][11] The CDH dates the Duelo to 1236–1246; its text survives in an 18th-century copy.[10]

Semantic evolution

Galls were a commodity, used for ink, dyeing and medicine: Alfonso X's Lapidario compares a stone with a gall, a book on horses of 1275 prescribes cypress galls, and the Fuero de Sepúlveda of about 1295 taxes la carga de las agallas “the load of galls”.[10][12][3] Nebrija distinguishes the gall of trees, the gall used for ink and the cone of the cypress.[13] In the Americas galls for ink are recorded from Puerto Rico in 1516.[14]

The Diccionario de Autoridades describes the gall of the oak, round and spongy inside, and that of the cypress, shaped like a nut.[15] In Cuba agalla is a shrub whose fruit yields a dye.[5][16]

Timeline

  • 1236–1246 – Berceo's Duelo de la Virgen, in an 18th-century copy, uses tres agallas for a worthless amount.[10]
  • 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario describes a stone shaped like a gall.[17]
  • 1275 – a book on the care of horses prescribes agallas de acipres “cypress galls”.[12]
  • c. 1295 – the Fuero de Sepúlveda taxes the load of galls.[3]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin galla for the gall of trees.[18]
  • 1513 – first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico: “2 libras de agallas”.[14]
  • 1553 – first record of the derivative agallón.[2][4]
  • 1736 – first record of agallo.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (botany) A gall, oak apple: a round growth that forms on oaks, cork oaks and other trees and shrubs through insect bites or infection.[5][1]
  2. (Cuba) A shrub of the madder family whose fruit yields a dye.[5][16]

Word family

  • agallón
  • agallo

agalla2 gill; tonsil; courage

Confidence
Uncertain
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1400 Glosario del Escorial
Inherited from
Latin glandula
Ultimate origin
Latin glans

Pronunciation

  • /aˈɡaʝa/, [aˈɣ̞a.ʝa], /aˈɡaʎa/[1]

Forms

agalla f (plural agallas)[1]

Etymology

The word for the gill and the tonsil is of uncertain origin.[2][4] Corominas relates it to Galician garla, Catalan ganya and the Cagliari form Sardinian ganga, which name the same organ, and thinks it unlikely to be the same word as agalla1.[2][4] Here too the first form was galla, found about 1400 in the Glosario de Palacio, beside the full form in the Glosario del Escorial.[2]

Because Italian gangola means “gland” in Tuscany, Corominas suggests that all these words may be inherited from Latin glandula (“gland”), dissimilated to *gandula and, with the loss of the vowel after the stress, *gangla.[2][4] He compares scandala, which gave escaña.[2] Gómez de Silva also calls the word uncertain and proposes the same Latin source as a possibility.[19] The Latin noun is formed glāns (“acorn”) + -ula.[20][1]

Corominas rejects an older idea that the gill was named after the gall through a comparison with the tonsils, although agállara “oak gall” means “gill” in some villages of Burgos.[2] His reason is that the Spanish word cannot be separated from the neighbouring names of the gill, Portuguese guelra and Occitan gaunha, nor from Murcian and Aragonese gaña, with ⟨ñ⟩.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records, about 1400, are in two Latin–Spanish glossaries, where the word means the gill of a fish.[2][4] The sense “tonsil” follows in Nebrija: his Latin–Spanish dictionary of 1492 renders Latin tonsilla as el agalla del ombre “the agalla of man”.[13][4]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 describes the gills as the opening at the end of a fish's head, through which fish breathe, and records the proverb quedarse de la agalla for someone caught or thwarted; he also calls swollen tonsils agallas.[21] The Diccionario de Autoridades has the tonsils and the gills, and the phrases quedarse colgado de la agalla and dejar de la agalla for a disappointed hope.[15] The sense “spirit, courage” is recorded from 1813, and the word also came to mean the sides of a bird's head and the testicles.[2]

The derivative agalludo means “brave, daring” in the Río de la Plata and “cunning, greedy” elsewhere in the Americas, and agallas “greed” is used in the Caribbean, Venezuela and Ecuador.[2][5][16] Portuguese borrowed the word as galha “dorsal fin”, recorded from 1899.[22][23]

Timeline

  • c. 1400 – the Glosario del Escorial has agalla and the Glosario de Palacio galla for the gill.[2]
  • early 15th century – first record of galludo, a kind of shark, in the Cancionero de Baena.[2][4]
  • 1492 – Nebrija renders Latin tonsilla with agalla.[13]
  • 1495 – first record of gallillo “uvula”, today galillo.[4]
  • 1591 – Percyvall glosses it as the kernels in the neck and the gill of a fish.[24]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias records the proverb quedarse de la agalla.[21]
  • 1813 – first record of the sense “spirit, courage”.[2]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (usually plural) A tonsil (amígdala).[5]
  2. (usually plural) A gill of a fish (branquia).[5][1]
  3. (usually plural) Each side of a bird's head, at the temples.[5]
  4. (plural) Inflamed tonsils, angina.[5]
  5. (plural, colloquial) guts, courage, daring: Hay que tener agallas para hacer eso.[5]
  6. (plural, Ecuador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Venezuela) greed.[5][16]

Word family

  • agalludo
  • galludo
  • galillo
  • glándula
  • Latin galla
  • Portuguese galha

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 s t Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 69
  3. ^ a b c d 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. agalla
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. agalla
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. agalla
  6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3655
  7. ^ a b 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. 4, 274
  8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. galle
  9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. galla
  10. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. agalla
  11. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 17
  12. ^ a b Alonso Pedraz, Martín (1986), Diccionario medieval español: desde las Glosas Emilianenses y Silenses (s. X) hasta el siglo XV, 2 vols., Salamanca: Universidad Pontificia de Salamanca, p. 170
  13. ^ a b c Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. agalla
  14. ^ 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, p. s.v. agalla
  15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, s.v. agalla
  16. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. agalla
  17. ^ 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. agalla
  18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 286
  19. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. agalla
  20. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. glandula
  21. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 74
  22. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1640
  23. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. galha
  24. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 55

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Agalla.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/agalla. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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