cabaña

Forms

cabaña f (plural cabañas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote cabanna, and also cabaynna, cabayna and cavanna.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish cabanna, inherited from Late Latin capanna (“hut”).^[4][5][6][1] The Late Latin word first appears in Isidore of Seville.^[4] Its origin is uncertain: Corominas and the BDELC take it from a pre-Roman language.^[5][4] Corominas finds it unlikely that it comes from canaba (“hut, store-room”), because a variant canapa is very doubtful, and he thinks a Celtic origin likely, since the suffix -anna is Celtic.^[4] The base may have been cappa (“cape”), which means “hut” in Milan and many dialects of eastern France;^[4] compare Welsh cab (“hut”).^[4] Pokorny proposed an Illyrian source.^[4] Wiktionary considers a metathesis of that Latin word possible.^[1] In his Catalan dictionary Coromines calls it probably Indo-European, but perhaps not Celtic.^[7]

The same word is Portuguese cabana, Galician cabana, Catalan cabanya, Occitan cabana and Italian capanna;^[8][7][1] French cabane was taken from Occitan.^[8][7][1] Covarrubias in 1611 already saw that the Spanish and Tuscan forms were the same word, with ⟨b⟩ for ⟨p⟩.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record dates from 1044.^[4][5] In the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (about 1200, in a 13th-century copy), Jonah fizo una cabana en que estido a la sonbra “made a hut in which he stayed in the shade”.^[10] The Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250) punishes aquel que la cabanna quebrantare “whoever breaks into the hut” as for breaking into a house.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose used the word for a hut, a shelter for livestock and a flock: the tithe was collected de cada cabanna.^[11] The sense “large flock”, still current in Upper Aragon, is in the Aragonese fueros of about 1300.^[4] Covarrubias said that cabañas were also the associations of stockbreeders, and that two hundred head made a cabaña.^[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades gave the shepherds' hut, the flocks subject to the Cabaña Real of the Mesta, and a train of more than a hundred donkeys carrying grain.^[12] In Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay a cabaña is a farm that breeds pedigree livestock.^[6][4] American Spanish passed the word to English as cabana, recorded in the western United States in 1898.^[13]

Timeline

• 1044 – first record.^[4][5]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy).^[10]
• c. 1236 – Berceo, Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos: pobre cabaña “a poor hut”.^[10][14]
• 1256–1300 – Alfonso X's laws use cabanna for a flock.^[11]
• c. 1300 – the Aragonese fueros have the sense “large flock”.^[4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it with Latin gurgustium and tugurium; the diminutive cabañuela is first recorded.^[15][5]
• 1532 – the first record in the Americas, in Mexico City.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias compares Tuscan capanna.^[9]
• 1898 – English cabana in the western United States.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hut or cabin: a small, rough building of poor materials used as a shelter or dwelling.^[6][1]
2. The livestock of a farm, region or country, counted by head: la cabaña ovina de la provincia.^[6][1]
3. A train of pack animals carrying grain.^[6]
4. A small one-storey house in a holiday or leisure area.^[6]
5. (billiards) The area marked by a line at the head of the table, from which a player with ball in hand plays.^[6]
6. (painting, rare) A picture of shepherds' huts with birds and farm animals.^[6]
7. (Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay) A farm that breeds pedigree livestock.^[6]

Word family

• cabañal
• cabañera
• cabañero
• cabañuela

Related words

• Portuguese cabana
• Italian capanna

Usage notes

Cabaña real was the migratory livestock of the stockbreeders of the Mesta.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 105
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 708
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cabaña
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. cabaña
7. ^ a b c 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, 365
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1634
9. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 359
10. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
11. ^ 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. cabaña
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. cabaña
13. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
14. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C.
15. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 307
16. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies