Etymologically
Log in

anca

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the Spanish word anca

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1200 Almerich, La fazienda de Ultra Mar, in a 13th-century copy More words from the 12th century
From
Frankish *hanka
Ultimate origin
Frankish *hanka

Pronunciation

  • /ˈanka/, [ˈãŋ.ka][1]

Forms

anca f (plural ancas)[1] Old Spanish also wrote ancha and hanca.[2][3]

Etymology

Corominas derives it from Frankish *hanka (“hip”), most probably taken through Catalan anca or Occitan anca.[4][5] He compares Middle Dutch hanke (“hip, haunch”) and Middle High German hanke, and relates them to Old Norse hǫnk (“coil of rope; buckle”), Danish hank (“handle”) and English hang.[4] He does not think it a Germanic word native to Castile, since among the Germanic languages the word belongs to Low German and perhaps Lombard; a foreign word is easily explained as a term of horsemanship or veterinary medicine.[4] The DLE takes it from Italian anca or Occitan.[6] Wiktionary instead treats it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *hanca, from Proto-Germanic *hankō, which it relates to *ankijǭ (“joint, limb”).[1] Köbler glosses the Proto-Germanic noun “handle” and compares a root Proto-Indo-European *kenk- meaning a peg or hook.[7]

The same word is Portuguese anca and French hanche, besides the Catalan, Occitan and Italian forms named above.[8][9] Coromines records the Catalan word from the end of the 13th century, and Cunha the Portuguese from the 14th, with probable influence from the French form.[10][11] The DELI records the Italian word in 1282 and reports that it has been called Frankish or Gothic (Gamillscheg, Sabatini) and Lombard (Bonfante, Migliorini).[12] Nocentini starts from a Germanic *hanha latinised in Vulgar Latin.[9] From the Spanish word come Mozarabic unquón (“hip”), recorded by Pedro de Alcalá, and old Aragonese ancón (“elbow”).[4]

In 1611 Covarrubias took the word from French and traced the French word to Ancient Greek ἀγκών (ankṓn, “elbow”), an explanation that the DCECH rejects.[13][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first example in the CDH is in Almerich's Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), in Abraham's words to his servant: Pon tu mano sobre mi anca e iura con el Sennor “put your hand on my thigh and swear by the Lord”.[14][2] The same text has the sense “hip” of a person: Cascuno ponga su espada sobre su anca “let each man put his sword on his hip”.[2] The DCECH and the BDELC date the word from 1256, in Aben Ragel's Libro conplido.[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Medieval texts use the word both for the human hip and for the hindquarters of animals.[2][15] The Moamín (1250), a book on hunting animals, wants hawks' ancas bien grandes “good big haunches”, and Alfonso X's Lapidario names the star on the hind haunch of Aries.[14][15] In 1611 Covarrubias still glossed it as the buttock and the hip joint, adding that horses' and mules' hindquarters are called ancas by likeness.[13] The Autoridades (1726) said that it means the hip, and that applied to people it is vulgar or jocular.[16] From 1817 the Academy said the human sense survived only in a jocular style.[17]

The phrases a ancas or a las ancas, riding behind another rider on the same horse, and no sufrir ancas are old.[13][17] Covarrubias used the latter of animals that will not take a second rider, and also of a meal too small to feed two.[13][17] Domínguez (1846) adds a nautical sense, the convex part of a ship's hull on each side of the sternpost.[18] In America the word is recorded from 1551 in Puebla, for a horse's brand en el anca derecha.[19] Colombia, Chile, Ecuador and Peru say al anca for a las ancas.[20][21] Uruguay has en el anca de un piojo “by a hair”, and Mexico dar ancas vueltas “to give odds in a game”, taken from horse races.[22][6][23]

Timeline

  • c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar uses anca for a person's thigh and hip (13th-century copy).[14][2]
  • 1250 – the Moamín uses it of animals' haunches.[14]
  • 1256 – Aben Ragel's Libro conplido, the DCECH's first record.[4]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses anca donde juegan los uessos with Latin coxendix.[24]
  • 1551 – first record in the Americas, at Puebla.[19]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias records no sufrir ancas.[13]
  • 1726 – the Autoridades calls the human sense vulgar or jocular.[16]
  • 1846 – Domínguez records the nautical sense.[18]
  • 1884 – the Academy first gives an etymology, from Germanic ancha “leg”.[25]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Each of the two side halves of the hindquarters of a horse or other animal; the haunch: El caballo llevaba una marca en el anca izquierda.[6][1]
  2. The rump of a horse, the grupa.[6][26]
  3. The hip of a person.[6]
  4. (colloquial) A person's buttock.[6]
  5. (obsolete) A person's thigh.[6]
  6. (cooking) The leg of a frog or chicken, as in ancas de rana “frog legs”.[1][27]

Word family

  • enancarse
  • anquear
  • ancudo
  • anquialmendrado
  • anquiboyuno
  • anquiderribado
  • anquirredondo
  • anquiseco
  • cadera
  • grupa
  • French hanche
  • Italian anca

Usage notes

A ancas or a las ancas means riding on the hindquarters of a horse that another person is riding.[6] In Peru anca also names toasted maize.[23]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e 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. anca
  3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. anca
  4. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 253
  5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. anca
  6. ^ 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. anca
  7. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3208
  9. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  10. ^ 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. 1, 302
  11. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 240
  12. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  13. ^ a b c d e Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 174
  14. ^ 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. anca
  15. ^ 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. anca
  16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 281
  17. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 62
  18. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 120
  19. ^ 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. anca
  20. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 91
  21. ^ Arona, Juan de [Pedro Paz Soldán y Unanue] (1883), Diccionario de peruanismos, Lima: J. Francisco Solís, p. 28
  22. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. anca
  23. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 98
  24. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 293
  25. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 70
  26. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. anca
  27. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. anca

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Anca.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/anca. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·