arco

Forms

arco m (plural arcos)^[1] Old Spanish texts also spell it archo and arquo, and archo is the form of the earliest record, an Aragonese document of 1179.^[2][3] Asturian has arcu.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin arcus (“bow; arch”), and has had the same form since the earliest Old Spanish documents.^[5][6][7][1] Wiktionary notes that some senses were inherited and others taken again directly from Latin.^[1]

The same Latin word is Portuguese arco, Galician arco, Asturian arcu, Catalan arc, Occitan arc, French arc, Italian arco and Romanian arc.^[8][9][1] In Ribagorça the Catalan dialect keeps arco, since final -o is kept there after a consonant cluster.^[9]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *arkuos (“bow”), and the derivatives show that its stem ended in *-kʷo- or *-kwo-.^[10][1] De Vaan compares Germanic words for “arrow”, Old English earh and Old Norse ǫr, and assumes an Italo-Germanic word for “bow”, the arrow being “what belongs to the bow”.^[10] Wiktionary gives the root as Proto-Indo-European *h₂erkʷo- (“bow, arrow”) and adds Ancient Greek ἄρκευθος (árkeuthos, “juniper”), explained by the use of supple twigs for bows.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to 1136, without quoting the passage.^[5][6] The earliest context in the CDH is the bow as a weapon, in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy): con my espada e con my arco “with my sword and with my bow”.^[11] The Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) gives a share to a foot soldier who brings arco o ballesta “bow or crossbow” and a hundred arrows.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already had the main senses: an arc of a curve and the bow, in the Lapidario (c. 1250–1279), and the arch of a bridge and the rainbow, in the Estoria de España (1270–1284).^[12] Accounts of 1218–1300 use the plural arcos for the hoops of a barrel.^[11]

Covarrubias (1611) explained the architectural sense from the shape of the drawn bow, and recorded the phrase aflojar el arco “to rest from work”.^[13] The Academy's 1726 dictionary gave the weapon, the architectural arch and the bow of the violin as separate senses.^[14][14] Later editions added the geometrical arc as the first sense, which the DLE keeps.^[15][7]

In Latin American football the word means the goal.^[7][16][1] The rainbow has many names in the dialects: arco de la vieja in the Canaries, after Portuguese, and arco de san Martín in Murcia;^[17][18] Corriente sees arco de Santiago as a calque of an Arabic euphemism.^[17][18]

Timeline

• 1136 – first record of the word, according to Corominas.^[5][6]
• 1179 – archo in an Aragonese document.^[2]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar uses it for the bow (in a 13th-century copy).^[11]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for an arc of a curve and for the bow.^[12]
• 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España uses it for the arch of a bridge and for the rainbow.^[12]
• c. 1300 – first record of the derivative arquero “archer”.^[6]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Latin fornix for arco de edificio.^[19]
• 1532 – first records from the Americas, in Mexico.^[20]
• 1533 – first record of arcada “arcade”.^[6]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the architectural sense from the shape of the bow.^[13]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the weapon, the arch and the violin bow.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin arcus.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. (geometry) An arc: the part of a curve between two points.^[7][1]
2. Anything shaped like an arc: Las ramas formaban un arco sobre el sendero.^[7]
3. A bow, the weapon for shooting arrows (flechas): tiro con arco.^[7][1]
4. (music) The bow used to play the violín and other stringed instruments.^[7][1]
5. A metal hoop that holds the staves of a barrel together.^[7]
6. (architecture) An arch: a curved structure that spans an opening.^[7][1]
7. (electricity) An electric arc (arco eléctrico).^[7]
8. (sports, Latin America) The goal in football and other games.^[7][16][1]
9. (storytelling) A narrative arc.^[1]

Word family

• arcada
• arquear
• arquero
• enarcar
• arcoíris
• arquería
• sobrearco

Related words

• arzón
• Latin arcus
• Portuguese arco
• Catalan arc
• English arrow

Usage notes

Arco iris (also written arcoíris) is the rainbow;^[1][21] arco de triunfo a triumphal arch.^[1][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. arco
3. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 47
4. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. arcu
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 317
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. arco
7. ^ 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. arco
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 618
9. ^ 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. 1, 363
10. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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. arco
12. ^ a b c 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. arco
13. ^ 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. 207
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 380
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 93
16. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. arco
17. ^ a b 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. arco
18. ^ a b Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 221
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 295
20. ^ 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. arco
21. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. arco