burla

Forms

burla f (plural burlas)^[1] Leonese and Galician-Portuguese texts have the variant bulra, by a metathesis common in those dialects; it is in the Miragres de Santiago at the end of the 14th century and is still normal in Galician.^[2]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[2][3] The Academy, García de Diego and Gómez de Silva take it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *burrula, a diminutive of Late Latin burra (“trifle, nonsense”); the current DLE only says “perhaps” from the Latin plural.^[4][5][6][7] Gómez de Silva connects this word with its homonym meaning “coarse cloth”.^[7]

Corominas calls the word common to the three Romance languages of the Peninsula and of unknown origin.^[2] He grants a link with the Late Latin plural burrae (“nonsense, trifles”), found once in Ausonius, but notes that its own origin is unknown.^[2][8] It can't be the same word as the one meaning “coarse wool”, which had a short ⟨u⟩ while the Spanish word requires a long vowel, and he rejects the long-vowel variant and its diminutive proposed by the FEW.^[2] He suggests instead that the Spanish word may be the Latin noun itself, with /rr/ becoming /rl/ as in charlar and carlanca.^[2] Wiktionary notes that the diminutive would make it a doublet of borla, which the REW derives from the same form, meaning “small tuft of wool”.^[1][9]

Portuguese burla is recorded from 1446 and Catalan burla from the 14th century (Eiximenis).^[2] Italian burla and burlare are not recorded before the 16th century and are probably Hispanisms, and Italian made the derivative burlesco from them.^[2] The verb burlar is derived from the noun.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest reliable hit is in the Castigos of 1293, which warn that women should not be idle or se meter a burlas “give themselves to jests”.^[10] Corominas also notes the word in the Castigos e documentos of King Sancho.^[2] Corominas and the BDELC date it from Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor (1330–1343), where it means “joke, jest”.^[2][3][11] The CDH also has burla in the Libro de los doce sabios (c. 1237, in a copy of about 1400) and the Crónica de Sahagún (c. 1255), whose Castilian text survives only in later copies.^[10]

Semantic evolution

By the 15th century the word covered mockery and ridicule, a jest or joke, and deceit: Palencia's 1490 dictionary glosses artificium as engaño y burla “deception and trick”.^[12] Nebrija gives Latin iocus and lusus for burla de palabra, a joke in words.^[13] Covarrubias in 1611 derived it, “quasi borrula”, from the coarse cloth buriel, and explained the word as a thing of little value.^[14] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1726) put deceit first, then mockery, then a thing of little worth.^[15]

The plural burlas is opposed to veras “earnest”: de burlas “in jest”, entre burlas y veras “half in jest, half in earnest”.^[5][16] The phrase burla burlando means “without noticing” or “quietly, as if by the way”.^[5] In Peru burla was a name for chorea and other convulsive nervous illnesses, and in rural El Salvador it is the apparition of a ghost and its noises.^[17][18]

Timeline

• 1293 – the Castigos warn women not to give themselves to burlas.^[10]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz uses burla for a jest in the Libro de buen amor.^[2][11]
• c. 1400 – the verb burlar becomes frequent, from the Cancionero de Baena; the BDELC dates it 1251.^[2][3]
• 1446 – the first record of Portuguese burla.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records burla de palabra and the feminine burlona.^[13][2]
• 1515 – the first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from the coarse cloth buriel.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives an etymology for the first time, from a Low Latin diminutive of burra “trifle”.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. mockery, ridicule: an action, gesture or words meant to make someone or something look ridiculous: Hacía burla de su acento.^[5][1]
2. A joke or prank; chanza.^[5][1]
3. A deception, a trick; engaño.^[5]
4. (in the plural) Jokes or lies, as opposed to veras “earnest”: entre burlas y veras.^[5]

Word family

• burlar
• burlería
• burlesco
• burlón
• burlador
• burleta

Related words

• borla
• borra
• Late Latin burra
• Portuguese burla

Usage notes

The phrase burla burlando means “without realising it” or “discreetly, as if by the way”.^[5] Hacer burla de is “to make fun of”.^[21]

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 k l m n o Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 702
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. burla
4. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. burla
5. ^ 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. burla
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. burla
7. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. burla
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. burra
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1415
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. burla
11. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 84
12. ^ 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. 560
13. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 306
14. ^ 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. 356
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 1, 717
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 125
17. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 171
18. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. burla
19. ^ 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. burla
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 174
21. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. burla