billete

Forms

billete m (plural billetes)^[1] Writers of the 16th and 17th centuries often spelt it villete, as Timoneda, Argensola, Ribadeneira and Cervantes did, and Covarrubias entered it under that spelling.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French billet, a masculine form of Old French billette (“letter, safe-conduct”), which is an alteration of bullete (“seal; certificate, document”).^[5][6][7][8] The latter is a diminutive of bulle (“seal”), from Latin bulla (“bubble, knob; seal”).^[8][9] The change of vowel is usually put down to the French word bille, which meant “ball” and also “piece of wood”, since the Latin word too meant “ball” as well as “document”.^[5][8] Pierre Guiraud doubted the alteration and preferred to see a diminutive of the word for “stick”, by the same path as the French étiquette.^[8]

Corominas dates the French masculine to 1457 and the feminine to 1389, but notes that the word must be older, since the French word with ⟨i⟩ and its Latinised form billa are found in England from at least 1272; from there comes the English word bill.^[5][6] The DHLF dates the masculine to 1359 and the older Old French form, meaning “seal”, to 1299.^[8] The Latin source also gave Spanish bola, bollo and, through Italian, boleta and boleto.^[10][11]

The Latin word has no sure etymology: the OLD compares Lithuanian bulìs (“buttocks”), and Wiktionary names Proto-Indo-European *bew- (“swelling”) or *bʰel- (“to blow, swell up”), with an onomatopoeic origin in the end.^[12][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hits are from the 1570s: a love song in Juan de Timoneda's Enredo de amor (1573), Haz le tu pena saber con vn villete añudado “let her know your pain with a knotted note”, and Diego de Torres's account of Morocco (before 1575), where someone writes two villetes to the governor of Fez.^[2] Corominas's first record is Antonio Pérez, about 1580.^[5] The sense in all of them is a short letter or note, which Saint Teresa's letters of 1576–1581 use again and again.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 describes the villete as a note sent between people in the same town, a good way to keep matters secret instead of trusting a servant with the message.^[4] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1726) calls it a voice brought from French and adds a second, newer sense, a bill of exchange or written promise to pay, which it calls a word taken from foreigners.^[13] The Academy's 1770 edition puts first an older use, a royal order sent on paper through one of the ministers.^[14]

The sense “ticket” came with the theatre: the 1843 edition adds a card that gives the number of a box or seat.^[15] Domínguez in 1846 has the banknote, billete de banco, and mocks the Academy for leaving it out; the Academy included the banknote and the lottery ticket in 1869.^[16][17] Terreros had already recorded the heraldic sense, a solid oblong charge on a shield.^[18] In Spain billete is the usual word for a travel or theatre ticket, while much of Latin America says boleto; in many American countries billete also means simply “money”.^[19][20][1] In the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico it has also meant a patch sewn on a worn garment.^[20][21]

Timeline

• 1573 – first record in the CDH, villete, in Juan de Timoneda's Enredo de amor.^[2]
• 1576 – Saint Teresa uses billete for a short note in her letters.^[2]
• c. 1580 – Corominas's first record, in Antonio Pérez.^[5]
• 1581 – first record in the Americas, a villete in Guatemala.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the word from French and explains its use for secret messages.^[4]
• 1726 – Autoridades adds the sense “bill of exchange”.^[13]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the sense “theatre ticket”.^[15]
• 1869 – the Academy adds the banknote and the lottery ticket.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy derives the word from Medieval Latin billa.^[23]

Meanings

Noun

1. A banknote (billete de banco): paper money that is legal tender: Pagó con un billete de veinte euros.^[7][1]
2. (chiefly Spain) A ticket for travel on a train, bus, plane or other transport.^[7][19][1]
3. A ticket that admits one to a show or gives a seat somewhere.^[7]
4. A lottery or raffle ticket.^[7][24]
5. A short letter or note.^[7][24]
6. (heraldry) A billet, an oblong charge on a shield.^[7][1]
7. (Latin America, colloquial) money: A ese le sobra el billete.^[7][20]

Word family

• billetaje
• billetear
• billetera
• billetero
• billetito

Related words

• boleto
• boleta
• bula
• French billet

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. billete
3. ^ 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. 185
4. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1390
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 585
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. billete
7. ^ 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. billete
8. ^ a b c d e Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1178
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1385
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 609
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 486
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 101
16. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 261
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 108
18. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 247
19. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. billete
20. ^ 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. billete
21. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 147
22. ^ 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. bille
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 152
24. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. billete