boya

Forms

boya f (plural boyas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French bouée (“buoy”), taken, according to Corominas, from an old or dialectal French variant rather than from the modern form.^[2][3] He starts from a form like boyee, which Palsgrave recorded in 1530, reduced to *boye; this would explain the diphthong /oi/ that Spanish shares with the English word buoy, which also comes from French.^[2][3] Galician-Portuguese has boia with the same senses; boia is a recent loan from Spanish, and boa a recent adaptation of the French word.^[2]

The French word is believed to come from Frankish *baukan (“sign, signal”), a relative of Old High German bouhhan (“sign”) and English beacon.^[2][3][4] Wiktionary gives the Frankish form as *baukn, from Proto-Germanic *baukną, which it and Gómez de Silva trace to a root Proto-Indo-European *bʰeh₂- (“to shine”).^[1][5]

The French history is unclear.^[2] The oldest French form is boue (1394), and the modern one is recorded from 1483;^[6] Corominas, following Bloch and Schuchardt, takes the modern form as a derivative of the older one with a suffix.^[2][6] The DHLF prefers a borrowing from Middle Dutch boeye (“float, beacon”), itself from the Frankish word.^[6] An older view derived the buoy from Latin boia (“fetter”), because it is chained to its place;^[1][7] Wiktionary considers this less likely.^[1][7] Bénaben leaves the choice between the Middle Dutch and the Frankish source open.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word from Nebrija's dictionary of about 1495, as a float or mark on the water.^[3][2] The earliest texts in the CDH that use it for a float tied to an anchor are of 1528, the statements of the sailors of the ship San Gabriel at Pernambuco, where men row towards the boya.^[9][2] Fernández de Oviedo (1535–1557) describes a stick or cork tied to a fishing line por boya o señal “as a buoy or mark”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

From the 16th century the word named both the marker of an anchor and the corks that keep a fishing net afloat;^[10] Covarrubias in 1611 gives only the cork of a net or a fish trap.^[10] Autoridades in 1726 calls it a nautical word: a stick with a cork tied to the anchor's buoy rope, so that one knows where the anchor lies.^[11] Terreros adds the French equivalent boüées.^[12] The Academy's 1884 edition derived it from Anglo-Saxon “byan, to stay”, an etymology later abandoned.^[13]

Modern dictionaries add the float of a fishing rod.^[14] In Bolivia a mine en boya is a prosperous one, and in Chile estar en la buena boya means to be in luck.^[15][16] Chilean Spanish also used boya for a dent, especially in a hat pushed down over someone's head.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1495 – first recorded, in Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary.^[3][2]
• 1528 – the sailors of the San Gabriel mention a ship's boya.^[9][2]
• 1535–1557 – Fernández de Oviedo uses it for the float of a fishing line.^[9]
• 1560 – first record in the Americas, in Yucatán, of harpoons tied with buoys.^[17]
• 1587 – García de Palacio, in Mexico, defines it as the mark on the anchor's buoy rope.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the cork of a net and the phrase buena boya.^[10]
• 1726 – Autoridades calls it a nautical word; the verb boyar “to float” appears the same year.^[11][3]
• 1884 – the Academy gives an Anglo-Saxon etymology for the word.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A buoy: a floating body anchored to the bottom of the sea, a lake or a river as a marker, especially of a danger or of a submerged object: La lancha se amarró a la boya roja.^[4][1]
2. A cork or other float fixed to a fishing net so that its weights do not sink it and the fishermen can find it again.^[4][18]
3. The float of a fishing rod, which holds the bait at a given depth and shows when a fish bites.^[14]

Word family

• boyar
• boyante
• aboyar

Related words

• English buoy
• French bouée
• Portuguese boia

Usage notes

Corominas lists two other words spelled boya.^[19] De buena boya “willingly” and buenaboya “a galley oarsman serving for pay” come from Italian buona voglia “good will” (1502, buena bolla).^[19][10] Boya “butcher; executioner” is known only from Covarrubias, who cites it as an Italian word.^[19][10] The Academy kept it as an obsolete word, deriving it from boy “ox”.^[13]

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 j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 646
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. boya
4. ^ a b c 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. boya
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. boya
6. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. bouée
7. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. boya
9. ^ 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. boya
10. ^ a b c d e Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 325
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 665
12. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 267
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 165
14. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. boya
15. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. boya
16. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 231
17. ^ 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. boya
18. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. boya
19. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 647