brazal

Forms

brazal m (plural brazales)^[1] Old Spanish wrote braçal and braçale.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin brachiāle (“armlet, bracelet”), the neuter of bracchiālis (“of the arm”).^[4][1][5] The BDELC lists it among the derivatives of brazo, and Wiktionary notes that it can also be read as that noun with the suffix -al.^[6][1] braquial is the learned doublet.^[1][7]

The same word is Portuguese braçal, Catalan braçal and Italian bracciale.^[1][8][9] bracchium (“arm”) was borrowed from Ancient Greek βραχίων (brakhíōn, “upper arm”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is in the Roncesvalles fragment (before 1250), where Oliver's shield is broken through the middle of its strap: el escudo crebantado por medio del braçale.^[3] DEMel records braçal and brazale as early as 1144 and 1147, in charters from the reconquest of the Ebro valley and of the Pilar of Zaragoza.^[2] The BDELC dates the word to the first half of the 14th century.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The first sense was the strap or handle of a shield, and the word soon named the piece of armour that covered the arm, as in the Gran conquista de Ultramar.^[3][10] Gold armlets are braçales in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Plutarch and Marco Polo of the 1380s–1390s.^[3] A charter of 1321 from Navarre already uses it for an irrigation channel taken off a river, a sense the Academy labelled Aragonese from 1770.^[3][11] Autoridades in 1726 added the wooden arm guard of the ball game of balón.^[12] The cloth band worn round the arm as a badge or in mourning first appears in Alemany's dictionary of 1917, and is the main sense in VOX.^[13][14]

Timeline

• 1144 – braçal in charters of the Ebro reconquest.^[2]
• before 1250 – the Roncesvalles fragment has braçale, the strap of a shield.^[3]
• 1321 – a charter from Mendavia uses it for an irrigation channel.^[3]
• 1379–1384 – Fernández de Heredia's Plutarch has braçales de oro.^[3]
• 1450 – bracelete, taken from French, is first recorded;^[15] brazalete follows in 1490.^[6]
• 1573 – the first record from the Americas, in Peru.^[15]
• 1726 – Autoridades records the arm guard of the ball game.^[12]
• 1917 – Alemany records the band worn on the arm as a badge or in mourning.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. In some ball games, a wooden guard fitted on the arm from wrist to elbow and held by a handle at its end.^[4][16]
2. A canal taken off a river or a large acequia for irrigation.^[4]
3. An armband worn as a badge or in mourning (brazalete): El delegado llevaba un brazal azul.^[4][14]
4. The handle of a shield (embrazadura).^[4]
5. (historical) A vambrace, the piece of armour that covered the arm.^[4][1]
6. (obsolete) A bracelet.^[4][1]
7. (obsolete) A handle (asa).^[4][1]

Word family

• brazalete

Related words

• brazo
• braquial
• Latin bracchium
• Portuguese braçal

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. brazal
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. brazal
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. brazal
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1114
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. brazo
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 81
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. braçal
9. ^ Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. 451
10. ^ 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. 548
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 1, 528
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 675
13. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 273
14. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. brazal
15. ^ 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. brazal
16. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. brazal