boca

Forms

boca f (plural bocas)^[1] Old Spanish texts also write bocca, voca and boqua.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Old Spanish boca, inherited from Latin bucca (“cheek; mouth”).^[5][6][7][1] The original sense “cheek” survives on the edges of the Romance area: Romanian bucă still means “cheek”, as do the words that Modern Greek, Berber, Breton and Welsh borrowed from Latin.^[5] The sense “mouth” is rarer in Latin but already found in Cicero, and it won out in almost all the Romance languages.^[5] It replaced Latin ōs, which probably did not survive because it was a single short syllable.^[8]

The same Latin word is Portuguese boca, Galician boca, Asturian boca, Catalan boca, French bouche and Italian bocca.^[9][10][1]

According to de Vaan, the Latin word first meant a puffed, filled-out cheek;^[11] “mouth” is a later sense and was at first derogatory.^[11] The DLE calls it Celtic and compares Gaulish bocca.^[7] Ernout and Meillet, as de Vaan reports, suspected a Celtic origin because the word resembles beccus (“beak”) and the Celtic personal names Buccus and Buccō.^[7][11] De Vaan leaves the question open and notes that the Germanic comparisons, if right, would point to a non-Indo-European source.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy): the weeping townspeople „de las sus bocas todos dizían una razón” “all said with one voice”.^[5][12] The DEMel lists an earlier primary record, boca in a charter of 1116 from the Oña collection.^[2] The Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) is the first text with no later copy.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In the Cid the mouth already stands for what one says.^[13] In a challenge to a duel, „por tu boca lo dirás que eres traydor” “you will say with your own mouth that you are a traitor”, the mouth stands for the confession itself.^[13] Menéndez Pidal cites the fueros of Oviedo and Avilés, where a man taking back an insult had to put his finger through his teeth.^[13] Old Spanish also used the word for an animal's mouth, for an entrance and, in a boca de noche, for nightfall.^[3] Alfonso X's prose has the mouth of a furnace and of a jar and the mouth as the organ of speech.^[14]

Covarrubias in 1611 records many phrases, among them a boca llena, which he uses to render a line of Horace, and quitarse algo de la boca “to go without something in order to give it to another”.^[15] The Diccionario de Autoridades adds a large opening such as the mouth of a cave.^[16] It also has bocas as an Andalusian name for a small crab-like crustacean.^[16] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 has the claws of crabs, the cutting edge of tools, the taste of a wine and a person one must feed.^[17] The 1869 edition adds the mouths of rivers.^[18] In Central America boca is a snack served with drinks.^[19]

Timeline

• 1116 – boca in a charter of the Oña collection.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid.^[5][6][12]
• c. 1180 – the spelling uocas in the Auto de los Reyes Magos.^[12]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes, the first text not known from a later copy.^[12]
• 1250 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for the mouth of a furnace and of a jar.^[14]
• 1495 – the derivative desbocado, said of a horse that will not obey the bit.^[6]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Latin os, oris as its equivalent.^[20]
• 1520 – first record in the Americas, in Cuba, in the phrase a boca llena.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records many phrases with boca.^[15]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary has the cutting edge of tools and the taste of wine.^[17]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. bucca”.^[22]

Meanings

Noun

1. mouth: the front opening of the digestive tract, in the head of a person or an animal.^[7][1]
2. The cavity behind it, holding the tongue and the teeth.^[7]
3. The lips.^[7]
4. The teeth.^[7]
5. The organ of speech: De su boca no salió ni una palabra.^[7]
6. An entrance or exit, often in the plural for rivers: la boca del metro, las bocas del Nilo.^[7][1]
7. An opening, a hole.^[7]
8. (theatre) The opening of the stage.^[7]
9. The cutting edge of tools such as chisels and hoes; the striking face of a hammer.^[7]
10. In books with a hollow back, the gap between the spine and the sewn gatherings.^[7]
11. The taste of a wine.^[7]
12. A person or animal one must feed: En esa casa hay cinco bocas que alimentar.^[7]
13. (zoology) The claw at the end of each front leg of some crustaceans.^[7]
14. (Central America) A snack served with drinks.^[19]

Word family

• bocado
• bocadillo
• bocanada
• bocana
• boquear
• boquera
• boquerón
• boquete
• boquilla
• bocón
• abocar
• desbocar
• embocar
• desembocar
• bocacalle
• bocamanga
• boquiabierto
• bocabajo

Related words

• bucal
• Latin bucca
• Portuguese boca

Usage notes

Common phrases include boca arriba “face up”, boca abajo “face down”, a boca de jarro “point-blank” and boca del estómago “pit of the stomach”.^[1][7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. boca
3. ^ 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. 79
4. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 95
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, 603
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. boca
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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. boca
8. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. boca
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. bucca
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1163
11. ^ a b c d de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ 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. boca
13. ^ a b c Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 99
14. ^ 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. boca
15. ^ 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. 321
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 625
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 133
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 110
19. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. boca
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 304
21. ^ 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. boca
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 143