cámara

Forms

cámara f (plural cámaras)^[1] Old forms include cambra in a Sahagún document of 998, canbara in a Riojan document of 1262, and cambariella in Berceo.^[2] Cambra in 16th-century Aragonese is a Catalanism.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish camara, inherited from Vulgar Latin camara (“vault”), a variant of Latin camera, from Ancient Greek καμάρα (kamára, “vault, vaulted room”).^[2][3][1] The DLE gives a Medieval Latin word meaning “room” as the immediate source.^[4] Corominas notes that the form with ⟨a⟩ was both the popular one (in Petronius and the Appendix Probi) and a learned spelling used by Spanish-born authors such as Seneca and Columella.^[2][5] The Spanish, Portuguese and many Italian dialect forms point to it, while Italian camera, French chambre and Catalan cambra could come from either.^[2] In classical Latin it meant only “vault”, and Saint Augustine and Cassiodorus already use it for “room”.^[2]

The same word is Portuguese câmara, Galician cámara and Asturian cámara.^[1][6] Beekes suggests the Greek word may be a loanword, and compares Avestan kamarā (“girdle”).^[7][8] Wiktionary thinks of an Old Iranian source.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid, in the scene of the lion: Fernando González finds nowhere to hide, nin cámara abierta nin torre “neither an open room nor a tower”.^[9][2][3]

Semantic evolution

In Alfonso X's prose the word also names the residence or court of a king.^[10] Autoridades defines it as an inner room, usually a bedroom, but notes that it was still used for any room of a house, and in villages for the room where grain is kept; it reports that Mariana and Ambrosio de Morales thought it Gothic, while Covarrubias derived it from Greek.^[11] The sense “granary, upper floor” is still popular in places such as Almería, where it may be Mozarabic.^[2] The plural cámaras meant diarrhoea, a sense Nebrija already records.^[12][4]

Corominas notes that the learned senses dominate in modern Spanish.^[2] The word names legislative chambers and corporations such as chambers of commerce, the compartment of a firearm or an engine, and the inner tube of a tyre.^[4] The sense “camera” comes from the dark chamber in which the film is exposed.^[13] In the Canaries cámara and recámara were names for a loud firework.^[14] The derivative camarada, first “a group of soldiers who share a room”, spread from Spanish into French, Italian, German and English.^[2][3]

Timeline

• 998 – the form cambra appears in a document of Sahagún.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses cámara for a room.^[2][3]
• 1206 – the derivative camarero is first recorded.^[2][3]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España speaks of the maidens of the king's cámara.^[10]
• 1499 – first record of the sense “upper floor where grain and provisions are stored”.^[2]
• 1515 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[15]
• 1555 – camarada first means a group of soldiers sharing quarters; by 1592 it means “comrade”.^[2][3]
• 1749 – a Canarian diary uses cámaras for fireworks.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. The main room or hall of a house;^[1] (dated) a bedroom.^[4][1]
2. A closed compartment, a chamber.^[4][1]
3. A body that defends the interests of its members: cámara de comercio.^[4]
4. Each of the houses of a legislature.^[4][1]
5. In a royal palace, the private room of the king and his gentlemen.^[4]
6. A loft where grain is stored.^[4]
7. (nautical) A cabin for officers or passengers.^[4][1]
8. The chamber of a firearm, where the charge goes.^[4]
9. The inner tube of a tyre or a ball.^[4][1]
10. A camera for photographs, film or television.^[4][1]
11. (masculine or feminine) A camera operator.^[4][1]
12. A bowel movement;^[1] (in the plural, medicine) diarrhoea.^[4][1]

Word family

• antecámara
• camarero
• camarilla
• camarín
• camarista
• camarote
• recámara
• camarada
• camarógrafo
• videocámara

Related words

• camarlengo
• chambelán
• bicameral
• Latin camera
• Catalan cambra
• Portuguese câmara

Usage notes

Set phrases include cámara oscura, cámara lenta “slow motion” and ayuda de cámara “valet”.^[4][16] When it means the person who operates a camera, the word is masculine or feminine: el cámara, la cámara.^[4][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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, 779
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cámara
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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. cámara
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cámara
10. ^ 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. cámara
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2
12. ^ 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. cámara
13. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cámara
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. cámara
15. ^ 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. cámara
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cámara