botija

Forms

botija f (plural botijas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin butticula, a diminutive of buttis (“cask”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin word is found as early as the Tironian notes.^[2] Niermeyer records it in Medieval Latin, with the variants buticula, butella and botella, for a small cask.^[5]

The same Latin word gave French bouteille, which names a glass vessel rather than an earthenware one and points to a base with a different vowel; so do boteja, the form of Aragon, La Rioja and Navarre, and the Navarrese botejo.^[2] The French word was borrowed into Spanish as botella, so the two are doublets.^[1][6] Spanish passed the word on to Portuguese botija and, in the 16th century, to Catalan botija.^[2][6]

Wiktionary considers the Latin word for a cask probably a loan through Ancient Greek βοῦττις (boûttis),^[1] and the DHLF thinks such a Greek source possible, though the Greek word may itself be borrowed.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Gran Conquista de Ultramar (c. 1300), where women who expected the men to be thirsty took barrels and botijas to carry water in.^[2][8] A Bible translation of the late 14th century has a man buy an earthenware botija from the potter.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias (1611) describes a pot-bellied earthenware jar with a narrow mouth and neck, and notes that children about to cry puff out their cheeks, which is called embotijarse.^[10] Autoridades defines it as a small earthenware bota or wooden keg for carrying liquids on ships, and records it as a nickname for a short, fat man.^[11] The phrase estar hecho un botija, said of children who are angry and crying, is in the Academy's dictionary from 1770, and in 1817 it was extended to very fat people.^[12][13] Salvá (1846) describes the botija perulera, a tall cone-shaped jar in which wine, brandy and olives were shipped from Spain to the Americas.^[14]

In Central America, the Caribbean and Venezuela botija came to mean buried treasure, after the jars in which money was hidden underground.^[15][16] In Uruguay it means a child.^[4][15] In Cuba it is the name of a tree, and in the Canaries a measure of liquid.^[4][17] English botija and Tagalog botiha are borrowings from Spanish.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – the Gran Conquista de Ultramar has the first record.^[2][8]
• c. 1422–1433 – Moses Arragel's Bible of Alba: Abraham gives Hagar bread and a botija of water.^[9]
• 1545 – the first record from the Americas, in Yucatán: oil carried in two botijas.^[18]
• 1589 – first record of the derivative botijo.^[2][3]
• 1591 – the English traveller Job Hortop writes of Buttesioes of wine.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records botijón and embotijarse.^[10]
• 1770 – the Academy records the phrase estar hecho un botija.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy explains the word as a diminutive of bota.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. A medium-sized round earthenware jug with a short, narrow neck.^[4][1][21]
2. (Cuba) A tree with palmate leaves, also called tecomajuche, and its soft, whitish wood.^[4][15]
3. (Central America, Caribbean, Venezuela; colloquial) Hidden or buried treasure.^[4][15]
4. (Uruguay; colloquial; masculine or feminine) A child, a youngster: Lo conozco desde que era un botija.^[4][1][15]

Word family

• botijo
• embotijar

Related words

• botella
• bota
• French bouteille
• Portuguese botija

Usage notes

Estar hecho una botija is said of a child who is sulking and crying, and of a very fat person.^[4][20]

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, 644
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. botija
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. botija
5. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. butticula
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ 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. 543
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. botija
10. ^ 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. 335
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 662
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 520
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 140
14. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 167
15. ^ a b c d e Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. botija
16. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. botija
17. ^ 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. botija
18. ^ 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. botija
19. ^ Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. botija
20. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 164
21. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. botija