baranda

Forms

baranda f (plural barandas)^[1] Old Spanish often wrote it varanda, the spelling Nebrija used.^[2][3]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[2][4] The word is shared with Portuguese, Catalan and Occitan, and Corominas thinks it most probably a pre-Roman Indo-European word, from an Indo-European language of the Peninsula, akin to Lithuanian varanda (“a ring or loop enclosing animals”) and to Sanskrit वरण्ड (varaṇḍa, “barrier, partition”).^[2][4][1] The Academy also gives an Indo-European origin and compares the Sanskrit word.^[5] The BDELC adds Old Irish ferann (“field enclosed by a hedge or stones”).^[4] Earlier scholars (Gonçalves Viana, Dalgado, Schuchardt) took the Sanskrit word for a late borrowing from Portuguese, but Corominas, relying on Mayrhofer, holds that it is old and native, and that the European word is too early to have come from Asia.^[2] Wiktionary instead takes the Spanish word as borrowed from Portuguese varanda.^[1]

The cognates are the Portuguese word (1498, Gil Vicente), Galician baranda “clothes rail”, Catalan barana, Old Occitan baranda “barricade” (12th century) and Basque baranda “balcony”.^[2] The oldest Romance record is Old Catalan baranna, in a charter of 1082 from Sant Cugat, of the railing of a terrace.^[2] Corominas takes ⟨v⟩ as the original initial, as Portuguese and the old Spanish spelling show, and explains the ⟨b⟩ of Catalan and Occitan by the influence of barrera and barra.^[2] In 1955 he had proposed a Celtic compound meaning “small boundary”, from a prefix and a Celtic relative of German Rand (“edge”).^[2] He later judged this weak, because the Celtic word is doubtful.^[2]

Meyer-Lübke and García de Diego derive it from vara “rod”, for the bars of a railing, and Covarrubias had already linked it with the rods of a railing.^[6][7][8] Corominas rejects this, since the suffix could only come from an unattested Latin verb meaning “to fence with rods”.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first records of the word (the 13th-century hits are the place name Varanda in Burgos) are the Crónica de Juan II (1406–1411, in a 15th-century copy), of a Moorish galley holed by a stone shot baxo de las varandas “below the railings”, and Pablo de Santa María (before 1412), of a man thrown dead por las barandas “over the balconies”.^[3] Corominas dates it from the Crónica de don Álvaro de Luna (c. 1460), where a tower was guirnaldada de barandas al derredor “garlanded with railings all round”.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija (c. 1495) rendered varandas with Latin words for a balcony and a floor, and Monzón (1544) used it for a gallery or terrace.^[2] Regional senses include a sheepfold in Upper Aragon and a fence of logs in Argentina; in Leonese it is a beam and a frame for sieving flour.^[2][10] In the Americas it appears in 1548, of a bridge with a handrail at Santo Domingo.^[11]

Autoridades (1726) defined it as a balustrade before altars or stairs and argued for the spelling with ⟨b⟩, since the word had no known origin; it also gave the phrase echar de baranda “to boast”.^[12] The Academy's 1770 edition noted that barandilla was now more usual and glossed the phrase as “to exaggerate”.^[13] The 1869 edition added the cushion of a billiard table.^[14] In the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico it names the side boards of an ox-cart, in Peru a kind of tenement house.^[15][16] The Portuguese word, through Anglo-Indian, gave English veranda.^[4]

Timeline

• 1082 – the Catalan baranna in a charter of Sant Cugat, the oldest Romance record.^[2]
• 1406–1411 – the Crónica de Juan II has varandas on a galley, the first record in the CDH.^[3]
• c. 1460 – the Crónica de don Álvaro de Luna, the DCECH's first record.^[2][4]
• 1548 – first record in the Americas, at Santo Domingo.^[11]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains varanda from varas.^[8]
• early 17th century – the diminutive barandilla is first recorded.^[4]
• 1726 – Autoridades prefers the spelling with ⟨b⟩ and records echar de baranda.^[12]
• 1869 – the Academy adds the billiard-table sense.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A railing, banister or balustrade (barandilla): Se apoyó en la baranda del puente.^[5][1]
2. The raised edge or cushion of a billiard table (billar).^[5]
3. (rural Dominican Republic; dated, Puerto Rico) The posts set along the edge of an ox-cart to hold in the load.^[15][17]

Word family

• barandilla
• barandal

Related words

• Portuguese varanda
• Catalan barana
• English veranda

Usage notes

Echar de baranda “to exaggerate, overpraise” is now out of use.^[5] The Academy has a separate masculine baranda, colloquial and pejorative, for an individual, especially a prominent one or one with authority; it gives no etymology.^[5][18] In the slang of prisons it meant the governor of a prison, which Salillas linked with Caló barander “magistrate”.^[19][20][21] In Argentina and Uruguay baranda is also a strong, unpleasant smell, especially of sweat, which Wikcionario explains as an alteration of vaharada.^[15][22][23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 497
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. baranda
4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. baranda
5. ^ a b c d e 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. baranda
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9150
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7036
8. ^ 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. 1371
9. ^ 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. 492
10. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. baranda
11. ^ 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. baranda
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 550
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 441
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 97
15. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. baranda
16. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 135
17. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. baranda
18. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. baranda
19. ^ Salillas, Rafael (1896), El delincuente español: el lenguaje, Madrid: Victoriano Suárez, p. 319
20. ^ Besses, Luis (c. 1905), Diccionario de argot español o lenguaje jergal gitano, delincuente profesional y popular, Barcelona: Manuel Soler, p. 39
21. ^ León, Víctor (1980), Diccionario de argot español y lenguaje popular, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, p. s.v. baranda
22. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. baranda
23. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org