caballo

Forms

caballo m (plural caballos, feminine yegua, feminine plural yeguas)^[1] Old Spanish usually wrote cavallo or cauallo; the DEMel also records cavayllo and cauayllo.^[2][3] The Diccionario de Autoridades held that it should be written with b, after Latin caballus, not with v as almost everyone did.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin caballus (“gelding; workhorse, nag”), a word that in Vulgar Latin was already used for any horse.^[5][6][1] In the Middle Ages the Spanish word and its Romance cognates replaced equus entirely.^[5] Spanish keeps the old word only in the feminine yegua and in learned words such as ecuestre and equitación.^[7][8]

The same Latin word is Portuguese cavalo, Galician cabalo, Asturian caballu, Catalan cavall, French cheval, Italian cavallo and Romanian cal.^[9][10][1]

caballus was itself a foreign word in Latin.^[5][11] Corominas reports the view that it was Celtic and related to Slavic words for “mare”, but adds that most scholars think it a travelling word that came from the East through Greek and reached both the Gauls and Vulgar Latin.^[5] De Vaan notes that Ancient Greek καβάλλης (kabállēs, “nag”) is recorded independently of Latin.^[11] He cites Beekes's view that it is an Asian loanword, comparable to Persian and Turkic words for a kind of horse, and leaves the source open.^[11] Wiktionary gives both the Gaulish and the Iranian proposals.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a charter of 932 in Oelschläger's list.^[5][6] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) the Cid „la cara del cavallo tornó a Santa María” “turned his horse's head towards Santa María”.^[12] The first hit in a text with no later copy is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250): „Qui non touiere casa et cauallo non sea iuez” “whoever has no house and horse shall not be a judge”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's books already use the word for the chess piece, which they say is commonly called cauallo but properly cauallero.^[13] They also use it for a part of the astrolabe.^[13] Covarrubias in 1611 notes that Latin caballus meant a nag such as millers used, not a mount for nobles or for war.^[14] The Diccionario de Autoridades adds the playing card and the use of caballos for mounted soldiers.^[4] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 has the mason's trestle and an inguinal tumour.^[15] The 1843 edition has the thread that crosses the skein on the reel.^[16] The DLE also lists the horsepower, the vaulting horse and, in slang, heroin.^[17]

In the Americas the word has been applied to people.^[18][19] Malaret in 1946 recorded “stupid, brutish person” in the Antilles, Guatemala, Peru and the River Plate.^[18] Today the DAMER gives both that sense and, in the Caribbean, “very able person”.^[18][19] Many languages of the Americas and the Philippines took the Spanish word, among them Aymara kawallu, Guarani kavaju and Nahuatl cahuayoh.^[1]

Timeline

• 932 – first record, in a charter.^[5][6]
• c. 1140 – cavallo in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[12][20]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes, the first text not known from a later copy.^[12]
• 1277 – a part of the astrolabe, in Alfonso X's astronomical books.^[13]
• 1283 – the chess piece, in Alfonso X's Libro de ajedrez.^[13]
• 1512 – first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias notes the low sense of Latin caballus.^[14]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades has the playing card and the cavalry sense.^[4]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary has the trestle and the tumour.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin caballus and Greek.^[22]
• 1946 – Malaret records the sense “stupid person” in several American countries.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. horse (Equus caballus): a large solid-hoofed mammal with a long mane and tail, easily tamed and used for riding and draught: Cruzó el río a caballo.^[17][1]
2. (chess) The knight.^[17][1]
3. In the Spanish pack of cards, each of the four cards showing a horse and rider, numbered eleven.^[17][8]
4. A sawhorse, a frame for holding timber being sawn.^[17]
5. A horsepower (caballo de vapor): Este coche tiene cien caballos.^[17]
6. The thread that crosses the skein when it is wound on the reel.^[17]
7. A bubo, a soft tumour.^[17]
8. (slang) Heroin.^[17][1]
9. (architecture) In traditional building, a triangular frame of beams that carries the roof.^[17]
10. (sports) A vaulting horse; the gymnastics event performed on it.^[17]
11. (mining) A mass of barren rock that cuts across a vein of ore.^[17]
12. (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico; colloquial) A person with great knowledge or skill.^[17][19][1]
13. (Central America, Caribbean, Bolivia, River Plate; colloquial) A dull, rough person.^[19][18]
14. (obsolete, nautical) A unit used in measuring the tonnage of ships.^[17]

Word family

• caballa
• caballada
• caballar
• caballete
• caballista
• caballito
• caballón
• caballeriza
• caballerizo
• caballero
• caballería
• caballuno
• acaballar
• cabalgar
• descabalgar

Related words

• cabalgata
• cabalino
• caballote
• Latin caballus
• Portuguese cavalo

Usage notes

Set phrases include a caballo “on horseback; astride”, caballo de batalla “the main point of a dispute” and caballo de Troya.^[1][23] The proverb a caballo regalado no le mires el diente is the Spanish “don't look a gift horse in the mouth”.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. caballo
3. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 107
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 9
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, 708
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. caballo
7. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
8. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. caballo
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. caballus
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1212
11. ^ 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
12. ^ 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, p. s.v. caballo
13. ^ a b c d 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. caballo
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. 464
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 150
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 119
17. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. caballo
18. ^ a b c d e Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 174
19. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. caballo
20. ^ 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. 566
21. ^ 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. caballo
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 177
23. ^ Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 427