barca

Forms

barca f (plural barcas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin barca (“boat”), and barca has the same form from the Cid on.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin word first appears in an inscription from the Algarve of about 200 AD, and then in writers from Hispania, Paulinus of Nola, who lived in Barcelona, and Isidore of Seville.^[3] Kluge therefore thought it of Iberian origin, and Corominas allows that it may be a word of Hispania.^[3][4] The common view derives it from Vulgar Latin *barica, from Ancient Greek βᾶρις (bâris), the name of a Nile boat in the Greek of Egypt.^[3][1][5] Through Latin bāris Wiktionary traces this to Coptic ⲃⲁⲁⲣⲉ (baare) and ultimately to Egyptian bꜣjr.^[1][6]

The word spread early through the Mediterranean part of the Western Empire: Italian barca, Occitan barca, Catalan barca and Portuguese barca.^[3][7] The form Old French barge seems a later import, with a different consonant, and modern French barque was taken from Occitan in the 13th century.^[3] From Romance it passed into Germanic, Celtic, Hispano-Arabic and Modern Greek.^[3]

Spanish and Portuguese alone made from it the masculine barco.^[3] Bénaben notes that, unlike pairs such as huerto and huerta, the feminine here names the smaller craft.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has it of an army sailing for Valencia: entraron sobre mar, en las barcas son metidos “they went to sea, they were put into the boats”.^[9][10] The Tentative Dictionary takes the Cid's barca as a large vessel.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages barca was a small vessel for fishing, for trade along the coast or for crossing rivers, and the Cid's use for a large one is rare.^[10][11][12] Covarrubias in 1611 derived it from the Tuscan verb varcare (“to cross”), since rivers were crossed with it, or from Greek bâris.^[13] Autoridades describes the keelless ferry of large rivers without bridges, and quotes the proverb La ventura de la barca: la mocedad trabajada, y la vejez quemada.^[14] The Academy's 1884 dictionary has the proverb Quien ha de pasar la barca, no cuente jornada, on the delays of travel by water.^[15]

Modern senses include the toll for crossing a river by boat, the swing boats of a fair, and a crate of wooden slats for fruit.^{[2][16][17][18]} In the Canary Islands barca is a long shallow basket, from 1767.^[19] García de Diego records barca for a large tub in Portuguese and Galician and for a pass between mountains in Navarre.^[20]

Timeline

• c. 200 AD – the Latin barca in an inscription from the Algarve.^[3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has barcas.^[9][4]
• c. 1215 – the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca writes barqua.^[9]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses it for a small coasting vessel.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija distinguishes barca de passage, barca de piloto and barca de pescador.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Tuscan varcare.^[13]
• 1726 – Autoridades describes the river ferry.^[14]
• 1767 – the Canarian sense “basket”.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. barca”.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small boat for fishing, sailing along the coast or crossing rivers: Cruzamos el río en una barca de remos.^[2][1]
2. The toll paid for crossing a river in a boat.^[2]
3. (Spain, chiefly plural) A fairground swing boat.^[16][17]
4. A crate of wooden slats for carrying fruit.^[17][18]
5. (Canary Islands) A long, shallow basket with handles.^[19]

Word family

• barco
• barquero
• embarcar
• desembarcar
• barquillo
• embarcación

Related words

• Latin baris

Usage notes

Estar en la misma barca “to be in the same boat” is used beside estar en el mismo barco.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. barca
3. ^ 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, 507
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. barca
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. barca
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. bāris
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 952
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. barca
9. ^ 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. barca
10. ^ 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. 496
11. ^ 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. 70
12. ^ 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. barca
13. ^ 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. 281
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 559
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 137
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. barca
17. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. barca
18. ^ a b Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. barca
19. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. barca
20. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. barca
21. ^ 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. barca