borrico

Forms

borrico m (plural borricos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *burrīccus, from Late Latin burrīcus (“small horse”).^[2][3][4][1] The Late Latin word, also spelt buricus, is found in texts of the 3rd to the 7th century.^[2][3] Corominas explains the double ⟨cc⟩ of the Spanish and Portuguese forms by the influence of the diminutive suffix -ico.^[2]

Its only native descendants are the Spanish word and Portuguese burrico;^[2][5] Catalan lacks the word, while Occitan bourric and dialect forms of northern Italy came from Spanish.^[2][5] A form Mozarabic borréko is already recorded about 1000.^[2][3] Spanish burro is a back-formation from the popular pronunciation ⟨burrico⟩.^[3][2]

The origin of the Late Latin word is uncertain.^[2][1] Wiktionary and Lewis & Short derive it from burrus (“red, reddish-brown”) with the suffix -icus.^[1][6] Ernout and Meillet suspected a Germanic word, and Nencioni a Mediterranean or African one, because Hesychius gives a similar Greek word as the name of the ass at Cyrene;^[2] Corominas rejects an etymon meaning “reddish” proposed by the Kahanes.^[2] Covarrubias and Autoridades had already linked the word to the reddish-grey colour of donkeys.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEMel's earliest record is the plural borricos in a charter of 1292 from the Carrizo collection.^[9] A Latin–Spanish glossary of about 1400 renders brunelus as borrico, and Nebrija gives borrico fijo de asna, “a young ass”, Latin pullus asininus.^[10][11][2]

Semantic evolution

The Late Latin sense “small horse” survives in Spanish only through the back-formation burro in western Asturian, where burru means “horse”.^[2] In Spanish borrico moved from the young ass to the donkey in general, and by the 17th century it was used for a dull, heavy person.^[2][8] Autoridades also records proverbs such as lerdo y comedor como borrico de yesero.^[8] The Academy added the carpenter's trestle in its 1843 edition and the phrase poner a alguien sobre un borrico, a threat of public flogging or shaming.^[12] In Argentina the word names a bone of the foot of cloven-hoofed cattle.^[13] Spanish soldiers took bourrique into French, and Thomas Gage wrote in English in 1648 of riding Boricoes, or asses.^[14][15]

Timeline

• c. 1000 – a Mozarabic form borréko is recorded.^[2][3]
• 1292 – the plural borricos in a charter of the Carrizo collection.^[9]
• c. 1400 – a Latin–Spanish glossary uses borrico to translate brunelus.^[10]
• 15th century – the feminine borrica in an Andalusian poem;^[2][3] burro appears in the same century.^[2][3]
• 1495 – Nebrija's dictionary;^[3][11] Corominas's dated first record.^[3][11]
• 1574 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the word from the colour of the animal's coat.^[7]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary records the carpenter's trestle.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy first derives it from Latin buricus “small horse”.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. donkey, asno; the feminine borrica is a she-ass.^[4][1]
2. (colloquial) A dull, coarse or stubborn person; also used as an adjective: No seas borrico y escucha.^[4][1][18]
3. A three-legged trestle on which carpenters rest the wood they are working.^[4][18]
4. (ichthyology) A deep-water fish of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, the chimaera.^[19]

Word family

• emborricarse
• borriqueño
• borriquero
• borrical
• borriquete
• burro

Related words

• asno
• Portuguese burrico
• Late Latin burrīcus

Usage notes

Caer alguien de su borrico means to realise one's mistake, the same as caer del burro.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 634
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. borrico
4. ^ a b c d e 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. borrico
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ 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. 332
8. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 656
9. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. borrico
10. ^ 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. 541
11. ^ a b c Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 305
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 109
13. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 68
14. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 85
15. ^ Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. borrico
16. ^ 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. borrico
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 150
18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. borrico
19. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. borrico