barrigudo

Forms

barrigudo (feminine barriguda, masculine plural barrigudos, feminine plural barrigudas)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish barriga + -udo.^[1][2][3][4] The adjective is recorded about a century before the noun: Corominas dates it c. 1300, in a chronicle of the Crusades, and the noun only to 1406–1412.^[5][6]

Corominas takes the base noun as the genuinely Castilian form of barrica (“cask”), the belly being compared to a barrel into which wine and food are poured.^[5] Wiktionary also gives the cask as a possible source, beside a less likely Greek one.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Gran conquista de Ultramar (c. 1295) describes a Turk: E el turco era tan grande, e era barrigudo, e tenia anchas las espaldas “and the Turk was so big, and was pot-bellied, and had broad shoulders”.^[4][7]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word described people with a big belly; the dictionaries render it with Latin ventrosus and ventricosus.^[4][8] In the Americas it was soon applied to animals and things: animales barrigudos in Mexico in 1576 and a small, wide-bellied drinking vessel in Lima in 1608.^[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1726) quotes Pedro Mexía's Historia imperial on the emperor Vitellius: Era mui barrigúdo, y coxeaba un poco de una pierna “He was very pot-bellied, and limped a little on one leg”.^[8] Moliner treats it as a synonym of barrigón.^[10]

As a noun it names animals with a swollen belly.^[11][12] In Peru it is a woolly monkey (Lagothrix), called mono churuco in Colombia;^[12][11][1] Vox describes a South American monkey with grey woolly fur, long arms, a prehensile tail and a large belly.^[12][11][1] In the Canary Islands it is a small blenny of the rock pools, recorded by Viera y Clavijo in 1799–1812.^[13][14]

Timeline

• c. 1295 – the Gran conquista de Ultramar calls a Turk barrigudo.^[4][5]
• 1488 – the word appears in the Spanish Fábulas de Esopo printed at Toulouse.^[15]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas: persona barriguda in Mexico City.^[9]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it in English “goabelly”.^[16]
• 1608 – in Lima, a small wide-bellied vessel is called barrigudo.^[9]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as a person with a big belly.^[8]
• 1799–1812 – Viera y Clavijo names a Canarian fish barrigudo.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's definition becomes the modern “having a big belly”.^[17]
• 1942 – Santamaría records the Peruvian name of the woolly monkey.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. potbellied, having a big belly; also used as a noun of a person: Era un hombre bajo y barrigudo.^[18][1]
2. Of a vessel or other object: bulging, wide in the middle.^[11][9]

Noun

1. (zoology) A woolly monkey of South America (Lagothrix), with a large belly and a prehensile tail.^[11][12][1]
2. (Canary Islands) A small blenny of the rock pools.^[13][14]

Related words

• barriga
• barrigón
• barrica

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
3. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. barrigudo
4. ^ a b c d 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. 500
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 525
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. barriga
7. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. barrigudo
8. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 566
9. ^ a b c d 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. barrigudo
10. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. barrigudo
11. ^ a b c d e Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. barrigudo
12. ^ a b c d e Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 192
13. ^ 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. barrigudo
14. ^ a b Maffiotte, Luis (1993), Los canarismos (manuscript c. 1887), ed. Lothar Siemens Hernández, Las Palmas: Instituto de Estudios Canarios, p. 216
15. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. barrigudo
16. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 77
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 140
18. ^ 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. barrigudo