bobo

Forms

bobo (feminine boba, masculine plural bobos, feminine plural bobas)^[1] Old texts also write bovo: Juan Ruiz has bova with the variant boba, and Nebrija writes bovo where Alonso de Palencia has bobo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin balbus (“stammering”).^[3][4][5][1] Wiktionary adds that sound symbolism influenced the form.^[1] The REW lists the Spanish word under the Latin adjective but allows that it may come from an expressive root with ⟨bob-⟩.^[6][3] Corominas thinks this possible but unnecessary.^[6][3]

The Portuguese word bobo has a close /o/, where /ou/ would be expected, so Cornu proposed a Latin word for “child” instead, which the DCECH rejects on much stronger phonetic grounds.^[3] Gonçalves Viana and Leite de Vasconcelos took the Portuguese word for a Castilianism, and the REW derives it from Spanish.^[3][6] Cunha allows Castilian influence.^[7] Corominas explains the vowel as a reduction of /ou/ before labials, and points to Mirandese búubo and the Galician noun bouba “jocular lie”, which keep the older diphthong.^[3]

In the other languages the Latin word changed its meaning: Catalan balb means “numb with cold” and French ébaubi “dumbfounded”, while Italian balbo kept “stammering”.^[3][8][6] The adjective Old Occitan bobs “foolish”, found once in 1318, and Sardinian bovu were taken from Castilian.^[3][6] The Latin adjective is an expressive word: de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *bl-bl- (“meaningless twaddle, stammering”), and the OLD calls it onomatopoeic.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor (1330–1343) uses bova for a foolish woman.^[2] A Latin–Spanish glossary of about 1400 renders Latin bobus as bobo, and in 1490 Alonso de Palencia gives bobo among the Spanish equivalents of a Latin word for “witless, careless”, the first record the DCECH knows.^[11][3]

Semantic evolution

In the Celestina (1499) the word also means “enthralled, carried away”: me traes boba con tus ofertas vanas “you have me dazed with your empty offers”.^[11] Corominas notes the related sense “stunned with surprise” in Villalón and Cervantes de Salazar.^[3] In the theatre of the Golden Age the bobo was the simpleton whose foolishness made the audience laugh, and Cervantes calls it the cleverest part in a comedy.^[5][12]

Covarrubias derived the word from Latin bos, bovis “ox”, likening the fool to the slow ox, and the Academy repeated his view in its first dictionary; he also records a hollow headdress worn under the chin called bobo and the proverb a los bobos se les aparece la Virgen María.^[13][14] Terreros gives bobo as the name of a seabird that lets sailors catch it by hand, and Salvá in 1846 a fish of American rivers, said to be named for how easily it is killed.^[15][16] The Academy's 1884 etymology was a Latin babulus, later replaced by balbus.^[17][5]

In Spanish America the word is recorded from 1535, for birds in Peru so tame they did not flee.^[18] In Cuba it names a card game, the mona, and in the Canaries the shrub Nicotiana glauca.^[19][20] The English word booby, first recorded in the 1590s, comes from the Spanish word.^[21][22]

Timeline

• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz uses bova in the Libro de buen amor.^[2]
• c. 1400 – a Latin–Spanish glossary renders bobus as bobo.^[11]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia's vocabulary, the DCECH's first record.^[3][4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija writes bovo.^[3][11]
• 1499 – the Celestina uses boba for “enthralled”.^[11]
• 1535 – first record in the Americas, in Peru.^[18]
• 1590 – José de Acosta records bobos, fish of New Spain that swim up the rivers from the sea.^[23]
• 1590s – English borrows the word as booby.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin bos “ox”.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy gives an etymology for the first time and records bobo de Coria.^[17]

Meanings

Adjective

1. stupid, silly: lacking understanding or sense; also used as a noun.^[5][1]
2. Typical of a foolish person: Fue una idea boba, pero nos reímos mucho.^[5]
3. naive, excessively innocent; also used as a noun.^[5][1]
4. (colloquial) Ample, full, not scant.^[5]
5. (Canary Islands) Flaccid.^[1]

Noun

1. A fool, a stupid or naive person.^[1][5]
2. In the classical Spanish theatre, the comic character who makes the audience laugh by his simplicity.^[5]
3. A scaleless, black-skinned river fish of Guatemala and Mexico, about 60 cm long.^[5]

Word family

• abobar
• bobalicón
• embobecer
• embobar
• bobada
• bobear
• bobería
• calabobos
• engañabobos

Related words

• balbucear
• Latin balbus
• Portuguese bobo
• English booby

Usage notes

The bobo de Coria is a proverbial figure for foolishness.^[5][17] Set phrases include a lo bobo and comer la sopa boba “to live at others' expense”.^[1] Corominas thinks sopa boba probably came from Italian, where a familiar word bobba means “soup”.^[1][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 79
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 602
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bobo
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. bobo
6. ^ a b c d e Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 898
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 535
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. balbus
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b c d e 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. 530
12. ^ 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. 188
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. 320
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. bobo
15. ^ 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, 253
16. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 157
17. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 155
18. ^ 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. bobo
19. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. bobo
20. ^ 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. bobo
21. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
22. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. bobo
23. ^ Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. bobo