boda

Forms

boda f (plural bodas)^[1] The Glosas Silenses have uotas “nuptials” and the Fuero de León of 1017 uota, Latinising spellings that keep the ⟨t⟩.^[2] Old Spanish wrote boda and voda.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vōta (“vows, promises”), the neuter plural of the Latin word for “vow”, named after the promises made when a couple married.^[2][5][6][1] Bénaben notes that, as in hoja and obra, a Latin neuter plural was reinterpreted as a feminine singular.^[7] Late Latin already used the plural for “wedding”, in the Novels of Justinian and the Decretals of Gregory IX;^[8] Latin inscriptions outside Spain have the singular spelt with ⟨b⟩.^[2]

The same word is Catalan boda and Portuguese boda;^[8] Portuguese also has bodo, a distribution of bread at a church door, and Tuscan has Italian boto “ex-voto”.^[2][8] The singular gave Old Spanish bodo “vow”, and the learned form is voto.^[2][9]

The Latin noun is the past participle of voveō (“to promise, vow”), from Proto-Italic *woweō and Proto-Indo-European *h₁wogʷʰéyeti, from the root *h₁wegʷʰ- (“to promise; to praise”).^[10][1] Its cognates include Ancient Greek εὔχομαι (eúkhomai, “to pray, vow”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) has the plural for the wedding feast: three hundred marks of silver are given to the couple que metan en sus bodas “to spend on their wedding”.^[11][12] Corominas's first records are in the Libro de Alexandre and the Primera crónica general; the Breve diccionario dates it c. 1250.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used the word, mostly in the plural, both for the marriage and for the festivities that followed it.^[12][13] Covarrubias in 1611 reported that many took boda for an Arabic word, and offered other guesses of his own; the Diccionario de Autoridades rejected them all and called it an old Castilian word.^[14][15] Autoridades also recorded boda de hongos “a poor wedding”, andarse de boda en boda “to idle from one feast to the next” and the proverb a boda ni bautizado no vayas sin ser llamado.^[15]

Today the DLE also gives the transferred sense “joy, festivity”, and anniversaries are named after weddings: bodas de plata, bodas de oro and bodas de diamante.^[6][16]

Timeline

• 10th century – the Glosas Silenses write uotas “nuptials”.^[2][5]
• 1017 – the Fuero de León has uota where another version has Latin nuptias.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses bodas.^[11]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy): fizo sus bodas con ella “he celebrated his wedding with her”.^[11]
• c. 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre, one of Corominas's first records.^[2][13]
• 1583 – a record from Panama speaks of the cost of the boda and the trasboda.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias reports that many think the word Arabic.^[14]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades calls it an old Castilian word.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wedding: the ceremony in which two people are married, and the celebration that follows; also in the plural with the same meaning: Celebraron la boda en el jardín de sus padres.^[6][1]
2. Joy, festivity, a celebration.^[6]
3. bodas de plata, de oro, de diamante: the 25th, 50th and 60th anniversary of a wedding or another important event.^[6][16]

Related words

• voto
• Latin vōtum
• Catalan boda

Usage notes

The plural bodas is used for a single wedding, especially in literary style.^[6][16] Boda de negros, “an uproar”, is a dated colloquial phrase.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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, 608
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. boda
4. ^ 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. boda
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. boda
6. ^ 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. boda
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. boda
8. ^ a b c Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 2, 23
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7281
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. voveō
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, p. s.v. boda
12. ^ 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. 80
13. ^ a b 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
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 632
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. boda
17. ^ 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. boda