barba

Forms

barba f (plural barbas)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote barua, barva and varua.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin barba (“beard”).^[4][5][1] Old Spanish barba has the same form in the earliest texts.^[3] The same Latin word is Portuguese barba, Galician barba and Catalan barba, as well as Occitan barba, French barbe, Italian barba, Sardinian barba and Romanian barbă.^[6][7][8]

The sense “chin” is found in all the languages of the Peninsula, in Languedoc, in Italy and in Romania, so Corominas thinks it must be very old, and perhaps a calque of Greek.^[4][9] The REW also notes it across almost all of Italy and the Iberian Peninsula.^[7]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *farðā and Proto-Indo-European *bʰardʰéh₂ (“beard”).^[1] From the Proto-Italic form Latin would have had an initial /f/; the /b/ is explained by assimilation to the second /b/.^[10][1] De Vaan lists the cognates Old High German bart and Old English beard and words in Baltic and Slavic, but notes that the vowel /a/ is hard to explain within Indo-European and may point to a word borrowed from another language into the European languages.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), where the hero is addressed as ¡Merced, ya Cid, barba tan conplida!, “Mercy, O Cid, beard so full!”^[11][4] In the poem the beard stands for the knight himself, in epithets and as a pronoun: ondró su barba means “he won honour”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In medieval Spain the beard was a sign of honour: to pull it or to seize someone by it was an affront in the Cid, and the fueros punish whoever pulls out another man's beard.^[3][11] The sense “man, person”, of about 1140, survives in por barba “per head”, recorded from 1611.^[4] The sense “chin” is recorded from about 1400.^[4][13]

In the 17th century barba, as a masculine noun, named the actor who played old men in the comedies, because he wore false beards.^[4][14][1] Covarrubias in 1611 has barba de ballena for the horny plates of the whale.^[15] The Academy recorded the beekeepers' use for the first swarm that leaves a hive in 1770, and a sense “shave” in 1869.^[16][17]

In Mexico and Puerto Rico hacer la barba means “to flatter”, a use found in El Pensador's Periquillo.^[18][19] In the Canaries barba is the barb of a fishhook, and in Mexico and Argentina the fringe of a shawl or bedspread.^[20][21]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses barba for “beard” and for the man himself.^[11][4]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita punishes whoever pulls out another's baruas.^[11]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses barba for the hair of the face; a text of about 1256 uses barua for the chin.^[22]
• c. 1400 – the sense “chin” in a Latin–Spanish glossary.^[13][4]
• 1532 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico.^[23]
• 1611 – the phrase por barba “per head”, and Covarrubias's barba de ballena.^[4][15]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the actor who plays old men.^[14]
• 1770 – the Academy records the beekeepers' sense “first swarm”.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. The part of the face below the mouth; chin (mentón).^[5][1]
2. The hair that grows on the chin, cheeks and jaw; a beard, also in the plural: Lleva barba desde que volvió del viaje.^[5][1]
3. A set of threads or filaments that look like a beard.^[5]
4. In goats, the tuft of hair hanging from the lower jaw.^[5]
5. The wattles hanging from the lower jaw of some birds.^[5][24]
6. (beekeeping) The first swarm that leaves a hive.^[5]
7. (in the plural) The awns or bristles of an ear of grain.^[5]
8. (Mexico, Argentina) The fringes of a shawl or bedspread.^[21]

Noun (masculine)

1. (theatre, dated) The actor who plays the part of an old man.^[14][1][4]

Word family

• barbado
• barbear
• barbijo
• barbilla
• barbudo
• desbarbado
• sobarba
• barbería
• barbero
• barbiespeso
• barbón
• barbar
• barbilampiño

Related words

• imberbe
• Latin barba
• English barber

Usage notes

Set phrases include por barba “per head”, en las barbas de alguien “to someone's face” and subirse a las barbas “to lose one's respect for a superior”.^[5][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. barba
3. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 70
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. barba
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. barba
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. barba
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ Buchi, Éva; Schweickard, Wolfgang, eds. (2008–), Dictionnaire Étymologique Roman (DÉRom), Nancy: ATILF, http://www.atilf.fr/DERom
9. ^ 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, 631
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. barba
12. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 82
13. ^ 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. 494
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, 552
15. ^ 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. 280
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 442
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 97
18. ^ García Icazbalceta, Joaquín (1899), Vocabulario de mexicanismos comprobado con ejemplos y comparado con los de otros países hispano-americanos, México: La Europea, p. s.v. barba
19. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 103
20. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. barba
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. barba
22. ^ 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. barba
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. barba
24. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. barba