bocina

Forms

bocina f (plural bocinas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote bozina with a voiced sibilant, as in the Libro de Alexandre, Alfonso de Palencia and Nebrija;^[2][3] uozina, vozina and boçina also occur.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish bozina, inherited from Latin būcina (“curved horn, trumpet”), originally the horn of a cowherd.^[2][4][5][6] Like Old French buisine, Old Occitan bozina and Catalan botzina, the Spanish form points to a base with the suffix -īna instead of the Latin short /i/, under the influence of that suffix;^[2] Corominas explains the /o/ of the last three by the influence of boca “mouth”.^[2] The DLE instead names the influence of voz “voice”, and Wiktionary allows either.^[7][1] The Latin vowel is kept in Romanian bucin and Portuguese búzio.^[2][8] The voiced sibilant of Old Spanish, still heard in Cáceres, matches the Latin spelling with a single ⟨c⟩.^[2]

The Latin word is probably a compound of bōs (“ox, cow”) and the root of canō (“to sing, play”).^[9][1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Almerich's Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), in the form bozina, for the trumpet with which the people of Israel were called together: Faz dos bozinas de argent “make two trumpets of silver”.^[5][11] The more general sense, a curved wind instrument of horn or metal, often in war, follows in the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250): mandó tañer las trompas e ferir las bozinas “he had the trumpets and horns sounded”.^[5][2][12]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th and 14th centuries it was also used for the medium through which God's word is spread (c. 1280), for a person or thing that announces something (1293), and for the horn that marked the hours in religious communities (1325).^[5] Covarrubias (1611) also records it as a name of the constellation of the Little Bear, and Autoridades adds the metal speaking trumpet used on ships.^[13][14] By 1817 the Academy had added a sea snail that seamen pierce and blow like a horn.^[15] Domínguez recorded the iron lining of a hawse-hole in 1846, and Alemany the horn of the gramophone in 1917.^[16][17] The DRAE of 2001 has the horn sounded mechanically in cars.^[18]

In the Americas it has come to mean a loudspeaker (from the United States and Mexico to Bolivia), the mouthpiece of a telephone (Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, Venezuela), and in Venezuela and the Río de la Plata a loud, shrill voice.^[19] In Bolivia, Argentina and Uruguay a bocina is also a person who talks too much and indiscreetly.^[19] The word was borrowed as Tagalog busina.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – bozina in Almerich's Fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[5][11]
• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre has it for a war horn.^[5][2]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España, the first record in a manuscript of the time.^[11]
• 1293 – the Castigos of Sancho IV use it figuratively for someone who spreads news.^[5]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: Bozina para tañer, Latin buccina.^[20]
• 1532 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias names the constellation la bocina.^[13]
• 1726 – Autoridades records the speaking trumpet of ships.^[14]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the sense “conch, sea snail used as a horn”.^[15]
• 1917 – Alemany records the horn of the gramophone.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cone-shaped instrument that strengthens the voice for speaking at a distance; a megaphone.^[7]
2. The horn of a car or other vehicle: El taxista tocó la bocina dos veces.^[7][1]
3. A horn, the musical instrument.^[7][1]
4. A conch shell blown like a horn.^[7][1]
5. The mouthpiece of a telephone.^[7][19]
6. The horn of a gramophone.^[7]
7. (nautical) A metal lining fitted inside a hole.^[7]
8. (Cuba, Mexico, Dominican Republic, and widely in Latin America) A loudspeaker.^[7][1][19]

Word family

• abocinar
• bocinazo
• bocinar

Related words

• buzo
• rebuznar
• Latin būcina
• Catalan botzina

Usage notes

Hacer bocina is to cup one's hands round the mouth to make the voice carry.^[7]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 605
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. bocina
4. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bocina
5. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. bocina
6. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bocina
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. bocina
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. būcina
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. bocina
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
12. ^ 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. 532
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. 323
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 632
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 134
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. 269
17. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 259
18. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. bocina
19. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. bocina
20. ^ 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
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. bocina