arpa

Forms

arpa f (plural arpas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote harpa, farpa and arpa; the Libro de Alexandre also has arba.^[2][3] Harpa remained a spelling in the dictionaries: Covarrubias and Autoridades have it as their headword.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French harpe, from Frankish *harpa (“rake; harp”).^[3][6] Corominas argues that the old aspirated initial, written ⟨f⟩ or ⟨h⟩, shows that Spanish took the word from Old French rather than inheriting it from Gothic, where it is not recorded.^[3] The Academy's 2001 dictionary traces the French word to Old High German harpfe and Proto-Germanic *harpō.^[7] Wiktionary instead derives the Spanish word from harpa, and García de Diego calls the source Gothic.^[1][8]

The Late Latin word is first found in Venantius Fortunatus in the 6th century, as the instrument of the barbarians.^[1][9] Corominas allows that it may come from West Germanic.^[3] The same word is Catalan arpa, Portuguese harpa, Galician arpa, Italian arpa and French harpe.^[10][11][12] The Germanic noun is related to German Harfe and English harp.^[6][13]

According to Corominas the Germanic word first meant something curved or played with curved fingers, which explains Old Occitan arpa (“rake”) and the French sense “claw”.^[3] Wiktionary calls the Proto-Germanic origin uncertain and suggests a root Proto-Indo-European *(s)kreb- (“to turn, bend”).^[1] Covarrubias in 1611 took the word from Ancient Greek ἁρπάζω (harpázō, “to snatch”), because the nails pluck the strings, and mentioned Mariana's Gothic view; the Academy's 1884 dictionary gave the Low Latin word and Ancient Greek ἅρπη (hárpē, “sickle, hook”).^[4][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Libro de Alexandre of about 1250, where manuscript P has farpa.^[3][6][2] Alfonso X's General estoria (1272–1275) names Jubal as the first to make çitolas & uiyuelas & farpas, citterns, viols and harps.^[15] A Castilian version of First Corinthians of about 1270 compares speech without meaning to the bozina or the arpa that make no distinct sounds.^[16]

Semantic evolution

The sense has stayed that of the triangular stringed instrument played with both hands, which Nebrija rendered with Latin cithara.^[17][18] The Academy's dictionary of 1770 described it in detail and said it was used in chapels to accompany the bass.^[19] In 1884 it recorded the phrase tronar como arpa vieja, used of a sudden, disastrous end, and in 1899 the arpa eolia, the Aeolian harp sounded by the wind.^[14][20]

In Mexico, Puerto Rico and other parts of the Americas arpa is a thin, bony horse, from the likeness of the ribs to strings.^[17][21][22]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – farpa in the Libro de Alexandre.^[3][6]
• 1272–1275 – farpas in Alfonso X's General estoria.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses harpa with Latin cithara.^[18]
• 1595 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the word from Greek.^[4]
• 1734 – Autoridades records a separate arpa “claw”.^[24]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary records tronar como arpa vieja.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. harp: a triangular musical instrument with strings stretched vertically, played with both hands.^[17][1]
2. (Mexico, Puerto Rico) A thin, scrawny horse.^[17][21]

Word family

• arpista

Related words

• French harpe
• English harp

Usage notes

A separate arpa “claw, hook”, from French harpe, is recorded only in dictionaries, from Autoridades in 1734 on; in Navarre and La Rioja it names a fork-like hoe for dung.^[24]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. arpa
3. ^ 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, 344
4. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 961
5. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 397
6. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. arpa
7. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. arpa
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3217
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. harpa
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4054
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 335
12. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1758
13. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. harpe
14. ^ 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), p. 98
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. arpa
16. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. arpa
17. ^ a b c d 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. arpa
18. ^ a b 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. arpa
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 323
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 91
21. ^ 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. arpa
22. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. arpa
23. ^ 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. arpa
24. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. arpa