blasón

Forms

blasón m (plural blasones)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French blason (“coat of arms; shield”), a word of uncertain origin.^[2][3][4][1] The French word is recorded from the 12th century, as are its two senses, “shield” and the figure painted on it; Old Occitan blezo is its Occitan counterpart.^[2][5]

Gamillscheg derived the French word from Frankish *blasjan (“to burn”) and the Occitan one from Gothic *blesjan, on the view that the French word first meant the enamelled figure on the shield; the REW, the FEW and Bloch reject this, holding that the first sense was the concrete “shield”.^[2] Corominas finds the question hard to decide, as both senses are equally old in French, and notes that blesir, on which the Gothic form rests, means only “to wither”.^[2] García de Diego tentatively places the word under Proto-Germanic *blas- (“flame, torch”).^[6] The DHLF points out that the link with the family of English blaze meets the difficulty that the earliest sense is the physical shield.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest records are in 15th-century poetry, in the phrase blasón de armas “coat of arms”: an anonymous poem in a manuscript of 1460–1463 says that blasón de armas más alta color es púrpura, “in a coat of arms the highest colour is purple”.^[7] DICCA-XV dates its first record 1445–1463, and the DCECH, which had none before Guevara (1539–1542), lists the derivative blasonar already in the first half of the 15th century.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

Beside the heraldic senses, blasón came to mean honour, glory or a reason for pride, and the Spanish of the 16th century also used it for boasting: Sánchez de Badajoz has no te tome por blasón.^[9][4] In the Americas it is recorded from 1549, for a device or motto borne in arms.^[10] Terreros (1786) reported a derivation from German blasen “to blow the trumpet”, from the trumpet that announced a knight at a tournament.^[11] The Academy's dictionary of 1899 derived it from Old French blazon “shield”.^[12]

Timeline

• 1407–1463 – blasón de armas in an anonymous poem, in a manuscript of 1460–1463.^[7]
• 1436 – the Comedieta de Ponza of the Marquis of Santillana has the rubric Blasón de armas, in a copy of about 1456.^[7]
• First half of the 15th century – the verb blasonar appears in the cancioneros of Stúñiga and Íxar.^[2][3]
• 1539–1542 – the DCECH's first record, in Guevara.^[2][3]
• 1549 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[10]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Old French blazon “shield”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (heraldry) The art of describing and explaining coats of arms (escudo de armas); heraldry.^[4][1]
2. (heraldry) Each figure or piece placed on a coat of arms.^[4][13]
3. A coat of arms: Sobre la chimenea colgaba el blasón de los condes.^[4][1]
4. honour, glory; a reason for pride.^[4][13][1]
5. (in the plural) Noble lineage.^[13]

Word family

• blasonar
• blasonista

Usage notes

Hacer blasón de algo is to boast of it, the same as blasonar.^[4][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 599
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. blasón
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. blasón
5. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. blason
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. blasón
7. ^ 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. blasón
8. ^ 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. blasón
9. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. s.v. blasón
10. ^ 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. blasón
11. ^ 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, 252
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 142
13. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. blasón