cárcel

Forms

cárcel f (plural cárceles)^[1] Old Spanish had cárcere in the 10th century, and the plural cárceres still occurs in Berceo.^[2][3] A Latinate carcer appears in the prose of Alfonso X.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin carcer (“prison, jail”); Old Spanish cárcere, recorded in the 10th century, had taken its present form by the time of the Cid.^[2][5][1][6] The final /l/ arose by dissimilation of the second of two /r/ sounds.^[7] The Latin noun was masculine; the feminine gender is analogical.^[8][1] Old Catalan hesitated between the two genders, while Castilian, Old Occitan and Old French made the word feminine, as in chartre.^[9]

The same Latin word is Portuguese cárcere, Galician cárcere, the old Catalan càrcer, Old Occitan carcer and Italian carcere.^{[10][11][9][6]} The REW notes that it may not be inherited everywhere, since the ordinary Romance word was prehēnsiō.^[11] The Latin word was also borrowed into Germanic, as Old High German karkāri, whence German Kerker.^[11]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *karkr(o)- and, with a question mark, Proto-Indo-European *kr-kr- (“circular”), connecting the word with other words for a circle or ring, such as curvus (“curved”) and Ancient Greek κίρκος (kírkos, “ring”).^[8] The reduplication may be iconic, so that the first meaning would have been “enclosure”; cancer (“crab”) and cancelli (“lattice, railing”) show the same form dissimilated to *kan-kr-.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) already has the word: salvest a Daniel con los leones en la mala cárcel “you saved Daniel with the lions in the evil prison”.^[3] The Liber Regum (c. 1194–1211) and the Fazienda de Ultra Mar use it for the prison in which Joseph was kept.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In medieval texts it is the building in which prisoners are kept, as in the Fuero de Zorita (c. 1250): téngalo preso en la cárcel del rey “let him keep him prisoner in the king's prison”.^[12] The same fuero lists the carçel first among the means of holding a man, with the stocks, chains and fetters.^[3] Nebrija gives Latin carcer and custodia for cárcel pública.^[13]

Salvá's dictionary of 1846 lists several transferred senses: a carpenter's clamp for glued pieces, the load of firewood two carts carry, a part of the printing press, and, as obsolete, the point from which the horses started in a race, like Latin carceres.^[14][15] The DRAE of 2001 still records a unit of firewood used in Segovia.^[16] The DLE now adds the sense “prison sentence”.^[5]

In the Americas the word is recorded from 1525, in Mexico City, in cárçel pública.^[17] It was borrowed into Tagalog and Central Bikol as karsel, and into Basque as gartzela.^[1][18]

Timeline

• 10th century – the form cárcere.^[2][6]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy) has cárcel.^[3][2]
• c. 1194–1211 – the Liber Regum uses it for Joseph's prison.^[3]
• 1220–1250 – first record of carcelero “jailer”.^[2]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (in a late 13th-century copy) has the plural cárceres.^[3]
• 1495 – first record of encarcelar “to imprison”.^[2]
• 1525 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[17]
• 1846 – Salvá lists the senses of carpentry, printing and firewood.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A prison, jail: a place where prisoners are held.^[5][1]
2. A prison sentence: Le pidieron cuatro años de cárcel.^[5][19]
3. The groove in which the boards of a sluice gate slide.^[5]
4. (carpentry) A wooden bar with two projections, between which two glued pieces are pressed with a screw or wedges; a clamp.^[5][20]
5. (printing) A pair of boards fixed to the uprights of a press that hold its screw.^[5]
6. (Segovia, rural) A unit for selling firewood.^[16][20]

Word family

• carcelario
• carcelero
• encarcelar
• excarcelar
• carcelería

Related words

• cancel
• cancelar
• canciller
• Latin carcer
• Portuguese cárcere

Usage notes

Cárcel de corona was a prison for clergy.^[5] Gómez de Silva puts the word in the same family as cancel, cancelar and canciller.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cárcel
3. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cárcel
4. ^ 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. cárcel
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. cárcel
6. ^ a b c Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 112
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cárcel
8. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b 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. 2, 568
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. carcer
11. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1679
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. 625
13. ^ 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. cárcel
14. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 214
15. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. cárcel
17. ^ 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. cárcel
18. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 101
19. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cárcel
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cárcel
21. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. cárcel