bronco

Forms

bronco (feminine bronca, masculine plural broncos, feminine plural broncas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *bruncus, which Corominas thinks first meant “a piece of a cut branch” or “a knot in the wood”.^[2] The Vulgar Latin word is explained as a blend of Latin broccus (“with projecting teeth; pointed object”) and truncus (“trunk”).^[2][3][1][4]

The same Vulgar Latin word is Italian bronco, Sardinian brunku, Occitan bronc “knot, projection, roughness”, Portuguese bronco “raw, coarse” and Old French bronche “block, bush”, and the REW derives French broncher “to stumble” from it.^[4]

The first of these Latin words was a popular adjective with an expressive double consonant, used for a deformity of the teeth.^[5] Wiktionary takes it as possibly Gaulish, from Proto-Celtic *brokkos (“badger”), and the DHLF mentions the comparison with an Irish word for the badger as a hypothesis.^[1][5] De Vaan takes the second as an old adjective meaning “maimed, robbed of its branches or head”, and sees no compelling reason to connect it with Gothic and Lithuanian verbs meaning “to push”.^[6]

Covarrubias related the word to people whose teeth stick out, and the Diccionario de Autoridades repeated his derivation from Latin broncus (“with large, uneven, projecting teeth”).^[7][8] The Academy kept this etymology in 1884 and 1899, and Alemany in 1917 gave it with “perhaps”.^[9][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to 1490, and thinks that the word then still meant a piece of cut branch or a knot in the wood, the sense from which “rough, unhewn” follows.^[2] The Old Spanish Textual Archive has it in Lucas Fernández's Farsas y églogas, printed at Salamanca in 1514.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In 1611 Covarrubias defined bronco as what is coarse and unhewn, and said that a harsh voice of people, animals or badly tuned instruments is also called bronca.^[7] The Diccionario de Autoridades compared it to a piece of timber before it is planed, quoting Lope's peñascos broncos “rough crags”, and gave the transferred senses “harsh, intractable” (Cervantes's tonto, bronco y rollizo in the second part of the Quijote) and “out of tune, harsh” of instruments and voices (una voz desentonada y bronca in the first part).^[8][13] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 has the sense “brittle, not ductile” of metals.^[14] A text of 1636 from Potosí already calls badly smelted lead quebradizo y bronco.^[15]

In Mexico the word was used of horses from the 16th century: a text of 1576 speaks of a pack horse that was muy bronco.^[15] In New Mexico it came to mean “wild, badly broken horse”, the sense that passed into the English of the Far West.^[2] English bronco “untamed horse of the American Southwest” is recorded from 1850, and bronco-buster from 1886.^[16] US Spanish now uses bronco as a noun for a wild horse, borrowed back from English.^[17]

The feminine noun bronca “quarrel” is recorded from 1886; the DLE now lists it under bronco, with the senses “harsh telling-off”, “noisy protest of an audience, especially at a bullfight” and, in Latin America, “anger”.^[2][3] In Mexico bronco is also said of unpasteurised milk and cheese, and in the Dominican Republic of a suspicious person.^[18][19]

Timeline

• 1490 – first record, according to Corominas.^[2]
• 1514 – in Lucas Fernández's Farsas y églogas (Salamanca).^[12]
• 1576 – a text from Mexico calls a pack horse muy bronco.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as coarse and unhewn and links it with projecting teeth.^[7]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the senses “rough”, “harsh in character” and “out of tune”.^[8]
• c. 1750 – the derivative bronquina is recorded.^[2]
• 1770 – the Academy lists bronquedad “harshness of a sound” as an old word.^[20]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary has the sense “brittle” of metals.^[14]
• 1850 – English bronco “untamed horse” is recorded.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from a Latin broncus “with projecting teeth”.^[9]
• 1886 – bronca “quarrel” is recorded;^[21] abroncar follows in 1891.^[2]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of a voice or a musical instrument: harsh, rasping, unpleasant to hear: Habló con un tono bronco y cansado.^[3][21]
2. Of a metal: brittle, not ductile and without elasticity.^[3][21]
3. Of a person: rough and surly in character and manners.^[3][22]
4. Coarse, rough, unpolished; also figurative.^[3][1]
5. (Mexico) Of a horse: unbroken, untamed.^[3][18]
6. (Dominican Republic) Suspicious, wary; shy.^[18][19]

Word family

• bronca
• bronquina
• abroncar
• bronquedad

Related words

• tronco
• broche
• Latin truncus
• English bronco

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bronco
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. bronco
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. *bruncus
5. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. broche
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 343
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, 688
9. ^ 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. 169
10. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 156
11. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 277
12. ^ a b Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
13. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. s.v. bronco
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 145
15. ^ a b c 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. bronco
16. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
17. ^ Moreno-Fernández, Francisco (2018), Diccionario de anglicismos del español estadounidense (Informes del Observatorio 037-01/2018SP), Cambridge, Mass.: Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University, p. s.v. bronco
18. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. bronco
19. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. bronco
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1770), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 2nd ed., vol. I: A–B, Madrid: Joachín Ibarra, p. 536
21. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bronco
22. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. bronco