armario

Forms

armario m (plural armarios)^[1] A dissimilated variant almario is common from the 13th to the 17th century;^[2] Nebrija gives it as the normal form, and it survives as a popular form.^[3][2] The DEMel counts 11 records of almario beside 18 of armario.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin armārium (“cupboard, cabinet; bookcase”), a learned word recorded in Berceo.^[3][5][6][7] The Latin noun is formed from arma (“weapons; tools”) with the suffix -ārium for a place.^[8][1][9] Corominas and the Vox dictionary take its first sense to have been “place where weapons are kept”.^[3][10] The Oxford Latin Dictionary records it only as a cupboard or bookcase, and the DHLF notes that the Latin word for weapons also meant “tools, gear”, so that an “arsenal” sense is possible but the cupboard sense is the one attested.^[8][11] In Medieval Latin it could mean an archive or an armoury.^[12]

The same Latin word gave Portuguese armário, Catalan armari, Occitan armari, French armoire, Italian armadio and Romanian almar.^[13][14] The inherited doublet is armero, which García de Diego records in the sense “cupboard” in Castilian.^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo's Del sacrificio de la misa (1228–1246, in an early 14th-century copy) tells of the censer that was always kept in the cupboard: el nobre encensario, que estava alçado siempre en el armario.^[15][16] The first record with no later copy, the Judizios de las estrellas (1254–1260), names las arcas & armarios among the things in which goods and keys are locked away.^[15][17]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the word named a chest or cupboard for valuables, books and liturgical objects; the Libro de Apolonio uses it for a coffin of light wood.^[15][18] A Latin–Spanish glossary of about 1400 glosses Latin bibliotheca as armario.^[16] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1726) describes a large wooden box shaped like a wall cupboard, with doors and shelves for clothes and other things kept under lock, guesses that such cupboards once held weapons, and calls the form almario a corruption.^[19]

The Academy's 1869 edition introduced the definition of an oblong piece of furniture with doors in front and shelves or rails inside, for books, clothes and other things.^[20] Alemany (1917) put first the sense “piece of furniture in which weapons were formerly kept”.^[21] The current dictionary adds the built-in armario empotrado, the colloquial sense “big, burly person” and the phrase salir del armario “to come out”.^[6]

Timeline

• 1228–1246 – Berceo's Del sacrificio de la misa, in an early 14th-century copy.^[15]
• c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio uses it for a coffin.^[15][18]
• 1254–1260 – the Judizios de las estrellas, the first record with no later copy.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary has the form almario.^[2][3]
• 1557 – the first record from the Americas, a cupboard for the town archive of La Paz.^[22]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades calls almario a corrupt form.^[19]
• 1869 – the Academy defines it as an oblong piece of furniture with doors in front.^[20]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin armarium.^[23]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wardrobe, cupboard or closet: a piece of furniture with doors and shelves or rails for keeping clothes and other things: Guarda los abrigos en el armario del pasillo.^[6][24][1]
2. (colloquial) A big, burly person.^[6][25]

Related words

• arma
• armero
• Latin armārium
• French armoire
• Portuguese armário

Usage notes

Armario empotrado is a cupboard built into the thickness or a recess of a wall.^[6] The colloquial salir del armario means to declare one's homosexuality.^[6][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. armario
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 337
4. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. armario
5. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. arma
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. armario
7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. armarium
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 84
10. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. armario
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 652
14. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 57
15. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. armario
16. ^ 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. 378
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. armario
18. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 49
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 394
20. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 69
21. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 166
22. ^ 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. armario
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 90
24. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. armario
25. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. armario