cabo

Forms

cabo m (plural cabos)^[1] Old Spanish texts also write cavo and cauo, and now and then the Latinising capo or capud.^[2] In Asturias the word is pronounced cau.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin caput (“head”); the Old Spanish form was already cabo.^[3][4][5][1] Wiktionary gives the intermediate form as Vulgar Latin *capus;^[1] Coromines notes that the neuter caput behaves in Romance as if it had soon been replaced by *capu.^[6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese cabo, Galician cabo, Asturian cabu, Catalan cap, Occitan cap, French chef, Italian capo and Romanian cap.^[7][8][1] Spanish jefe is the French form, borrowed later, so the two are doublets.^[8][1]

caput continues Proto-Italic *kaput “head”; its cognates include Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌿𐌱𐌹𐌸 (haubiþ) and Old English hēafod, from Proto-Germanic *haubud-.^[9] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *kauput- or *kaput-.^[1]

Corominas derives all the Spanish senses from the Latin word: “end of a thing”, “point of land running into the sea” and “leader, chief”.^[3] He takes the nautical sense “rope” as a special use of “end”, since one throws the end of the rope, not the whole of it, and rejects Meyer-Lübke's view that it is a Portuguese word from Latin capulum.^[3] García de Diego instead derives the rope sense from a separate *capus “rope”, formed from capulum.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to a charter of 931 in Oelschläger's list.^[3][4] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) it means the end of a period of time, „fasta cabo del año” “until the end of the year”,^[11] and also “far end” and “principal one”: the Cid's tent is the one that „de las otras es cabo”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used cabo for either end of a thing (Berceo's „El cabo de la soga”), for a place or side and for the end or limit of something.^[13][14] The phrase de cabo “again” (13th century) comes from work that begins at one end of an object: to start again is to start from the end.^[3] The Cid already has de la cabeza fasta a cabo, which Menéndez Pidal relates to de cabo a cabo and the later de cabo a rabo.^[12]

Covarrubias in 1611 linked the noun with acabar “to finish”, and recorded estar al cabo “to be dying” and estar al cabo de un negocio “to understand a matter thoroughly”.^[15] The Diccionario de Autoridades added the handle of a tool or knife, citing a pun of Quevedo on cabo as a corporal and as a knife handle.^[16] Modern uses include the rope of a ship, the rank of corporal and, in several Caribbean countries and Mexico, a cigar or cigarette butt.^[17][5][18]

Timeline

• 931 – first record, in a charter.^[3][4]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses cabo for “end” and “chief one”.^[11][12]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for the end of a fish's tail and for a place or side.^[14]
• 1251 – the Calila has the phrase de cabo “again”.^[3]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses promontorium as cabo de tierra sobre mar.^[19]
• 1493 – the first record from the Americas, in the phrase en todo cabo “everywhere”.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin caput and records estar al cabo.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from caput and the sense “cape”, with the Cape of Good Hope as example.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. Either end or extremity of a thing.^[5][1]
2. The small piece left of something, a stub or butt: un cabo de vela.^[5][1]
3. A handle.^[5][17]
4. In some trades, a thread or strand.^[5]
5. (geography) A cape or headland, a strip of land running into the sea.^[5][1]
6. (dated) A leader, chief or captain.^[5][17]
7. (military) A corporal, the rank just above private.^[17][22][1]
8. A part, place or side.^[5]
9. The end of something in time; a limit or boundary.^[5][1]
10. (nautical) A rope or cable.^[5][1]
11. (Argentina) The leg of a horse from the knee or hock to the hoof.^[5]
12. (Mexico, Caribbean) A cigar or cigarette butt.^[18]

Word family

• acabar
• recabar
• cabal
• menoscabar
• cabero

Related words

• cabeza
• menoscabo
• jefe
• Latin caput
• Catalan cap

Usage notes

Common phrases built on the word include al cabo, al fin y al cabo “after all”, de cabo a rabo “from beginning to end”, atar cabos “to put two and two together” and cabo suelto “loose end”.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. cabo
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 714
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cabo
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. cabo
6. ^ 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, 501
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. caput
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. caput
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cabo
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cabo
12. ^ a b c Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. cabo
13. ^ 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. 573
14. ^ 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. cabo
15. ^ 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. 365
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 28
17. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cabo
18. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. cabo
19. ^ 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. cabo
20. ^ 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. cabo
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 181
22. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. cabo