caña

Forms

caña f (plural cañas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote canna and caña;^[2][3][4] Aragonese texts also have canya and cayna.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish canna, inherited from Latin canna (“reed”).^[5][6][7][1] The Latin word was borrowed from Ancient Greek κάννα (kánna, “reed”).^[1][8]

The same Latin word is Portuguese cana, Galician cana, Catalan canya, Occitan cana, French canne and Italian canna.^[1][5] Galician and Portuguese also took the Castilian word in some senses, such as “pith; marrow”.^[5]

The Greek word is generally traced to Semitic: the OLD and Wiktionary derive it from Akkadian qanû (“reed”), and Covarrubias and Gómez de Silva compare Biblical Hebrew קָנֶה (qāne, “reed”).^{[9][1][10][11]} Beekes, as Wiktionary reports him, leaves open whether it came through a Pre-Greek or Anatolian source.^[1][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word from a charter of 1070 in Oelschläger's list.^[5][6] Early texts use it for a measure of length for cloth: the Fuero de Madrid tells fullers and weavers to work per canna, and the Fuero de Alcalá (c. 1235) counts woven sackcloth in cañas.^[3][2] The Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200) uses it for a stalk, in Pharaoh's dream of seven ears en una canna.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the word named the reed and the stalk of grasses, a measure of length, and the canes carried by the king's officers.^[4][13] Alfonso X's General estoria calls the branches of a candlestick cannas.^[13] By likeness the word was applied to the stalk of wheat and to the long bones of the arms and legs, and today also to the marrow, the leg of a boot and parts of a gun.^[7][14]

Caña de azúcar “sugar cane” is recorded in the Canary Islands in 1492; in the Americas caña alone came to mean the sugar cane and the spirit distilled from it.^[15][16][17] The juego de cañas, a mock fight on horseback with canes, was played in Tierra Firme in 1515.^[18][19] In Spain caña is now also a tall glass of beer, and in Chile a hangover.^[7][1][16] In Andalusia it names a flamenco song, which Corominas sees no reason to derive from Arabic.^[5]

Timeline

• 1070 – a charter, the DCECH's first record.^[5][6]
• 1158–1202 – canna as a cloth measure in the Fuero de Madrid.^[2][3]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar uses it for a stalk of grain.^[3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario compares a stone to a reed.^[13]
• 1492 – caña de azúcar recorded in the Canary Islands.^[15]
• 1512 – first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin canna and Hebrew.^[10]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the plant and the bone of the limbs.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. The stem of grasses, usually hollow and jointed.^[7][1]
2. The giant reed, a tall grass of southern Europe with a woody, hollow, flexible stem, growing in damp places.^[7][1]
3. The Indian shot plant (cañacoro).^[7]
4. The long bone of the arm or leg; the shin.^[7][1]
5. marrow.^[7]
6. The leg of a boot or stocking, between knee and foot.^[7]
7. A tall, narrow glass for wine or beer, and the drink in it: Nos tomamos unas cañas al salir del trabajo.^[7][1]
8. (south-eastern Spain) A land measure of six square cubits.^[7]
9. sugar cane.^[7][16]
10. (chiefly Latin America) A spirit distilled from fermented sugar-cane molasses.^[7][16]
11. (Chile, colloquial) A hangover.^[16][1]
12. A fishing rod, caña de pescar.^[1][20]

Word family

• cañero
• cañizo
• cañón
• cañafístula
• cañada
• cañazo
• caño
• cañaveral
• cañería

Related words

• cañar
• canal
• canasta
• canilla
• Latin canna
• Portuguese cana

Usage notes

Dar caña or meter caña is colloquial for beating someone or pushing hard.^[20][1] In the plural, cañas is the old tournament game with canes.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. caña
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. caña
4. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 97
5. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 820
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. caña
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. caña
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. canna
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. canna
10. ^ 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. 418
11. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. caña
12. ^ 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, p. s.v. κάννα
13. ^ a b c 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. caña
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 128
15. ^ 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. caña
16. ^ a b c d e Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. caña
17. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 208
18. ^ 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. caña
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. caña
20. ^ a b 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. 99