bolsa

bolsa¹ bag

Pronunciation

• /ˈbolsa/, [ˈbol.sa]^[1]

Forms

bolsa f (plural bolsas)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the bag is inherited from Old Spanish bolsa, inherited from Late Latin bursa (“hide; leather bag, purse”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas calls it semi-learned or a late arrival: as a fully popular word bursa would have given ⟨*bosa⟩, and the ⟨l⟩ comes from a failed attempt to say the group /rs/, unusual in early Castilian.^[2][3] The Galician-Portuguese forms show the same;^[5][6] in Galicia the usual form is Galician bulsa, a still more learned form.^[2]

The same word is Portuguese bolsa, Catalan bossa, French bourse and Italian borsa.^[2][5][6] The Latin word, recorded from the 4th century, is from Ancient Greek βύρσα (búrsa, “hide, skin; wineskin”).^[1][7][8] Beekes calls the Greek word a technical term without etymology, perhaps Pre-Greek.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Libro de Apolonio (c. 1240, in a 14th-century copy) has the purse of a seller: „el uendedor con ella, su bolsa apareiada” “the seller with her, his purse ready”.^[10][11] The Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250) speaks of a „bolsa en que los tus dineros los condeses” “a purse in which to keep your money”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The Gran conquista de Ultramar still has the original sense “waterskin”.^[2] Alfonso X used the word for the scrotum, in the name of a star, and for money or treasure.^[12] Covarrubias says the purse takes its name from the leather it is made of, and quotes the proverb la bolsa sin dinero, dígola cuero.^[13] Cervantes has el que compra y miente, en su bolsa lo siente.^[14] Autoridades adds any case or cover for carrying something, such as the bolsa de arzón on a saddle.^[15]

The Academy's 1884 dictionary has the bag in which men gathered their hair, a fur-lined foot muff, a crease in a garment, money, and senses in mining and anatomy.^[16] Modern uses include bags under the eyes, pockets of gas or oil, groups on the margins of society (bolsa de pobreza) and a boxer's purse.^[4] In Mexico and Central America bolsa is a pocket, in Venezuela and Bolivia it is vulgar for the testicles, and in several countries it is a handbag.^[17][18][1]

Timeline

• c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio (in a 14th-century copy).^[10][3]
• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre.^[10]
• 1277 – Alfonso X uses it for the scrotum.^[12]
• c. 1290–1293 – the Fuero de Béjar has la bolsa del rey, the king's treasury.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: bolsa para dineros.^[19]
• 1512 – first record in the Americas, bolsas de terciopelo in Puerto Rico.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin and Greek.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bag or sack of cloth or other material for carrying or keeping things: Guarda el pan en una bolsa de tela.^[4][1]
2. A small leather purse for money, tied or closed at the top.^[4][1]
3. A travel bag for clothes and other things, carried by hand or on the shoulder.^[4]
4. A pucker in a garment that is too loose, or where one of two pieces sewn together is longer.^[4]
5. A bag under the eyes.^[4]
6. A cavity holding a fluid, or a mass of one substance inside another, such as a pocket of oil or gas.^[4]
7. A group of people or things in a marginal or precarious situation.^[4]
8. A person's money or means.^[4][18]
9. (sports) The prize money of a boxer, or the sum offered to competitors.^[4]
10. (Mexico, Central America) A pocket in clothing.^[17][1]
11. (Mexico, Cuba, Guatemala, Panama) A handbag.^[18][1]
12. (Venezuela, Bolivia, vulgar, in the plural) The testicles.^[17][1]

Word family

• bolso
• bolsillo
• bolsón
• embolsar
• desembolsar
• reembolsar
• bolsear
• bolsero
• cortabolsas

bolsa² stock exchange

Pronunciation

• /ˈbolsa/, [ˈbol.sa]^[1]

Forms

bolsa f (plural bolsas)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the stock exchange is, according to Corominas, borrowed from Italian borsa; before it Spanish said lonja.^[2][3] He derives the Italian word, recorded in 1567, from the name of the Van der Burse family of Bruges, in whose house the Venetian merchants met, and treats it as a sense of the bag word.^[2][3] The Academy derives the Spanish word directly from the name of the Van der Bourse family of Bruges, and Moliner explains that the name means “of the purse”.^[4][18]

Others take the word from French bourse: Baralt in 1855, Nocentini (for the Italian word too) and the Spanish Wiktionary, which thinks the sense more probably grew out of “purse”.^[21][5][22] The family story goes back to Guicciardini's description of the Low Countries (1567): the family's house, whose arms showed three purses, gave its name to a square in Bruges where the merchants met.^[23][7][5] The Italian etymological dictionary keeps this explanation; the French historical dictionary also considers a sense development of “purse”, through the phrase Medieval Latin moneta in bursa currens (“money current at the time of payment”) (Brabant, 1290).^[23][7] Gómez de Silva and Bénaben think the family story probably wrong or not well established.^[24][25] On every account the name goes back to the word for purse, bolsa¹.^[7][18]

Semantic evolution

Baralt in 1855 condemned the sense as a gallicism, saying that Spanish had always called the place lonja or casa de contratación, but admitted that it was in general use and accepted by the Academy.^[21] The Academy's 1884 dictionary defines it by lonja.^[16] The learned derivative bursátil is first found in Bretón de los Herreros, who died in 1873.^[2] Today the word names the institution, its building, its dealings and the share prices, and by extension any organised market, for example in diamonds.^[4]

Timeline

• 1549 – French bourse as a financial term.^[7]
• 1567 – Italian borsa, and Guicciardini's story of the Van der Burse family.^[2][23]
• 1646 – first record in Spanish.^[2][3]
• 1855 – Baralt calls it a gallicism.^[21]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A stock exchange: the institution where shares and other securities are publicly bought and sold.^[4][1]
2. The building where the exchange is held.^[4]
3. The dealings in public securities.^[4]
4. The prices of the shares traded on the exchange: Esta mañana la bolsa ha bajado.^[4]
5. An organised market in precious or valuable goods, such as diamonds or ivory.^[4]
6. A gathering at a set time and place to deal in certain objects, such as stamps.^[4]