bordo

Forms

bordo m (plural bordos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French bord (“side, edge”), from Frankish *bord, as a variant of borde.^[2][3][4][1] The DLE and Wiktionary derive it from that word.^[4][1] Corominas thinks the word came in as a nautical term, wavering between the two forms; the written language later kept the form in ⟨-o⟩ for the side of a ship and the one in ⟨-e⟩ for every other edge.^[2][3]

The French noun is recorded from about 1121; the Frankish word is reconstructed from Old Norse borð (“edge, upper planking of a ship”) and its cognates in Old Saxon, Old English, Dutch and Old High German.^[5] It goes back to Proto-Germanic *burdą, of uncertain origin.^[1]

Corominas holds that Italian bordo, rare before the 16th century, and Catalan bord were taken from Spanish.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Gutierre Díaz de Games's Victorial (1431–1449, in a copy of about 1500) says of some ships that they were baxos de bordo, “low in the side”.^[6] In 1444 Juan de Mena uses el bordo del muro for the foot of a city wall, in the general sense “edge”.^[6] Corominas's first record is of 1492, and the Amadís has el bordo de la galea, “the side of the galley”.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

From “the side of a ship” the word came to mean the stretch sailed on one tack: since the wind strikes the same side of the ship until it tacks, dar bordos is to sail close-hauled by alternate tacks, recorded from 1535.^[2][3] An account of 1550 from Chile already speaks of dar bordos on the voyage.^[8] Autoridades records the general sense “edge” beside the nautical one, and a figurative dar bordos for circling round something, as a bird does.^[9] The Academy's dictionary marks the sense “edge” as old in 1770.^[10] The phrase a bordo “on board” appears in its 1843 edition.^[11]

Several Latin American senses grew out of “edge”: in Mexico, Honduras and Nicaragua a bordo is an embankment built along a river to prevent floods or to hold back water, and in Mexico also a small dam or reservoir.^[4][12] García Icazbalceta describes it as a bank of turf and stakes built in the fields to hold rainwater.^[13] In Argentina and Bolivia it is the ridge between two furrows, as on La Palma and other Canary Islands, where it may be a Portuguese loan or an old Castilian word.^[12][14][15] In Colombia, Ecuador and Honduras the old sense “edge” survives.^[4][16]

Timeline

• 1431–1449 – baxos de bordo in the Victorial.^[6]
• 1444 – Juan de Mena's Laberinto de Fortuna has el bordo del muro.^[6]
• 1492 – Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• 1535 – the sense “tack, board” in dar bordos.^[3][2]
• 1587 – a Mexican book on navigation defines bordos as the outer sides of a ship and ir a bordo as going inside it.^[8]
• 1609 – the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega writes of a ship sailing con los bordos off a Peruvian port.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades gives dar bordos as a nautical phrase and also in a figurative sense.^[9]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary records a bordo and rendir el bordo.^[11]
• 1917 – Alemany records the Mexican sense, a bank of turf for holding water.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. (nautical) The outer side of a ship; board.^[4][1]
2. (nautical) A tack: the course a ship sails between two turns.^[4][1]
3. (Mexico, Honduras, Nicaragua) An embankment built along a river or stream to prevent floods or to hold back water.^[4][12]
4. (Argentina, Bolivia, Canary Islands) The ridge of earth between two furrows.^[12][15][1]
5. (dated, Colombia, Ecuador, Honduras) Edge, rim.^[4]

Word family

• abordar
• bordada
• transbordar

Related words

• borde
• borda
• French bord

Usage notes

A bordo means “on board”, in a ship and by extension in other vehicles: Los pasajeros ya están a bordo del tren.^[4] Franco bordo is the freeboard of a merchant ship, de alto bordo describes the larger ships, and fuera bordo an outboard motor.^[4][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 625
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. borde
4. ^ 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. bordo
5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. bordo
7. ^ 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. 539
8. ^ 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. bordo
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 651
10. ^ Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 513
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 108
12. ^ 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. bordo
13. ^ García Icazbalceta, Joaquín (1899), Vocabulario de mexicanismos comprobado con ejemplos y comparado con los de otros países hispano-americanos, México: La Europea, p. s.v. bordo
14. ^ 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. bordo
15. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. bordo
16. ^ Cuervo, Rufino José (1914), Apuntaciones críticas sobre el lenguaje bogotano, 6th ed., París: A. & R. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 324
17. ^ Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. bordo
18. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 266
19. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bordo