astillero

Forms

astillero m (plural astilleros)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish astilla + -ero.^[2][1][3] Corominas explains it as having the same origin as Portuguese estaleiro and Old French astelier (“heap of wood; carpenter's workshop”) (modern French atelier): all three are derivatives of the Spanish noun and its sisters astela and astele, with the original sense “heap or store of timber”, later narrowed to the yard where ships are built.^[4][3] The French noun took the same path as chantier, “workshop” and then especially “shipyard”.^[4] Gómez de Silva derives the Spanish word directly from the Old French one.^[5]

García de Diego starts from Vulgar Latin *astellarium, but Corominas did not find convincing his earlier idea that it came from a special sense of the noun, “a timber over the keel”.^[6][4] The Portuguese form comes from asteleiro by metathesis.^[4] The noun itself goes back to Late Latin astella (“splinter”).^[5][7]

taller has its own source: it was taken from the modern French word in the Golden Age.^[4][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is Pero Tafur's Andanças e viajes (c. 1457), which counts eighty galleys, some in the water and others en el astillero “in the shipyard”.^[8] Corominas dated the word from Hernán Cortés's letters (1524), where Cortés has four ships en astillero on the South Sea coast.^[4][3][8] An Italian stigliero in Ramusio's translation of a Castilian text, made between 1510 and 1530, also attests it indirectly.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Percyvall glossed it in 1591 as “a docke to build ships in”.^[9] In the first chapter of the Quijote the hidalgo keeps his lanza en astillero, on the rack for lances;^[10] Covarrubias explained this astillero as a stand for lances, an ornament of a gentleman's house.^[10] The Academy's 1770 dictionary had the shipyard, an obsolete sense “bottom of a ship” and the figurative phrase poner en astillero “to raise someone to a high post”.^[11] The rack for lances and an obsolete “maker of combs for looms” were added in 1817.^[12]

In Mexico astillero is the place in the woods where firewood is cut, first in the Academy's dictionary in 1899; in Tabasco it was a heap of chips or the place where they were thrown.^[13][14][15] The DLE also keeps the sense “timber store”.^[2]

Timeline

• c. 1457 – Pero Tafur speaks of galleys in the astillero.^[8]
• 1487 – a lawsuit refers to a ship put en el astillero to be built.^[8]
• 1510–1530 – Italian stigliero in Ramusio's translation of a Castilian text.^[4]
• 1524 – Hernán Cortés, Corominas's first record.^[4][3]
• 1539 – the first record in Boyd-Bowman's lexicon of the Americas, in Nueva Granada.^[16]
• 1591 – Percyvall: “a docke to build ships in”.^[9]
• 1770 – the Academy records the shipyard and the phrase poner en astillero.^[11]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the Mexican sense “woodcutting place”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A shipyard or dockyard, where ships are built and repaired.^[2][1]
2. A store of timber.^[2]
3. A rack for spears, pikes and lances.^[2][1]
4. (obsolete) The bottom of a ship.^[2]
5. (obsolete) A craftsman who made combs for looms.^[2]
6. (Mexico) A place in the woods where firewood is cut.^[14][17]

Related words

• astilla
• astil
• taller
• Portuguese estaleiro
• French atelier

Usage notes

The phrase en astillero, now disused, meant “in a high post or dignity”.^[2][11] Moliner treats the rack for lances as a separate word, astillero¹, from an assumed *astilero derived from astil under the influence of astilla.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. astillero
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. astillero
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 384
5. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 94
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. astillero
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 63
8. ^ 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. astillero
9. ^ a b Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 72
10. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 134
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 370
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 99
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 103
14. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 116
15. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 47
16. ^ 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. astillero
17. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. astillero