buitre

Forms

buitre m (plural buitres)^[1] Old Spanish had boitre (1098), bueitre (the Calila, Aragonese proverbs of the 14th century, the Corbacho), yutre (the Libro de Alexandre) and butre.^[2][3] The form butre still lives in Cespedosa.^[2] Regional forms include Asturian utre and utra and old Aragonese bueitre.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish boitre, inherited from Latin vultur (“vulture”).^[2][5][6][1] Wiktionary suggests that the spelling with ⟨b⟩ may owe something to būteō (“buzzard”).^[1]

The same Latin word is Portuguese abutre, Galician voitre, Asturian utre, French vautour and Romanian vultur (“eagle”).^[7][4][8] Catalan voltor and Italian avvoltoio come from the derivative vulturius.^[9][10]

The Latin noun (also voltur) may belong to vellō (“to pluck, tear”), as the bird that tears, but de Vaan finds the suffix -ur- surprising and the reconstruction *u̯elH-tor- unappealing.^[11][12] Muller saw a rhyming word with its opposite turtur (“turtle dove”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds boitre in a document of 1098, and the spelling buitre in Juan Manuel in the 14th century.^[2][5] The earliest literary hit in the CDH is the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in a 15th-century copy), on Tityus, whom the vultures eat twelve times a day.^[3] The Poridat de las poridades of about 1250 has butres around a dead beast.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century the word also named stars: Alfonso X's astrological texts call Vega the buytre cayente “falling vulture”, because it was pictured as a vulture with folded wings.^[13][3] The Castilian form had reached Valencian by 1460, in Jaume Roig.^[2] In 1726 the Academy noted that the Latin etymon called for a spelling with ⟨v⟩, but that common usage wrote ⟨b⟩.^[14] In the Americas the word was soon used beside local bird names; a Peruvian text of 1599 has cóndores buytres.^[15] The Academy's dictionaries of 1884 and 1899 called the condor the gran buitre de las Indias.^[16][17]

Figurative senses are modern: the Academy's 2001 edition had a person who profits from another's misfortune, and the current dictionary adds an unscrupulous person after someone's money and, colloquially, a person who chases others for casual sex.^[18][6] Regional Spanish of the Americas uses it for a womaniser and a sly person in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, an undertaker's worker in Chile and a traffic policeman in Ecuador.^[19][20]

Timeline

• 1098 – first record, in the spelling boitre.^[2][5]
• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre has buitres and the variant yutre.^[3][2]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas names the star buytre cayente.^[13]
• 1251 – the Calila e Dimna uses the form bueitre (in a later copy).^[3]
• 1460 – the Castilian word appears in the Valencian poet Jaume Roig.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin vultur and vulturius for bueitre.^[21]
• 1541 – first record in the Americas, in Michoacán.^[15]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades describes the bird at length.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) vulture: a large bird of prey with a bare neck and a ruff of long feathers that feeds on carrion and lives in flocks.^[6][22][1]
2. (colloquial) A person without scruples who seeks to profit at someone else's expense: Ya rondan los buitres alrededor del negocio.^[6][22]
3. (colloquial) A person who chases others for a passing sexual relationship.^[6]
4. (Chile) A worker at an undertaker's.^[19]

Word family

• buitrera

Related words

• buitrón
• Latin vultur
• Portuguese abutre

Usage notes

Kinds include buitre leonado (the griffon vulture, the commonest in Spain) and buitre negro, also called buitre monje or buitre franciscano.^[22][6] The fishing net buitrón is recorded from 1074, earlier than the bird's name.^[2][5] Corominas thinks its link with buitre is probably secondary, a popular reshaping of a word from *vertubulum.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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, 693
3. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. buitre
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7288
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. buitre
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. buitre
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9488
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 853
9. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 9, 384
10. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
11. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
13. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. buitre
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 710
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. bueitre
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 172
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 159
18. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. buitre
19. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. buitre
20. ^ 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. buitre
21. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. buitre
22. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. buitre