cabra

Forms

cabra f (plural cabras)^[1] Aragonese has craba.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish cabra, inherited from Latin capra (“she-goat”).^[3][4][5][1] The same Latin word is Portuguese cabra, Galician cabra, Asturian cabra, Aragonese craba, Catalan cabra, Occitan cabra, French chèvre, Italian capra, Sardinian craba and Romanian capră.^[2][6][1]

The Latin word is the feminine of caper (“he-goat”).^[7][1] Its cognates name male animals of the wild: Ancient Greek κάπρος (kápros, “wild boar”) and Old Norse hafr (“he-goat”).^[7][3] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *kápros (“buck, he-goat”), but de Vaan doubts that a single Indo-European word for “goat” can be reconstructed and thinks a loanword more likely, given its closeness to Proto-Celtic *gabros (“goat”).^[1][7] Corominas also discusses the Celtic form, whose ⟨g⟩ and ⟨br⟩ are irregular.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas and his short dictionary date the word from 965, and the DEMel has cabras in a document of 1086.^[3][4][8] In La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200) Jacob's gift to Esau includes cc cabras, “two hundred goats”, and a testament of the 13th century leaves sennas ouelas & senas cabras, “a sheep and a goat each”, to the testator's nieces.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish also had cabra de fuego for a burn blister, in Juan Ruiz.^[10] Covarrubias praised the usefulness of the goat, and explained its name by carpere “to crop”, because the animal crops shoots.^[11] He also recorded cabra saltante for the will-o'-the-wisp, which Corominas explains by the popular belief that goats are possessed by the devil.^[3]

The name passed to a stone-throwing siege engine, which the Academy recorded in 1884 together with the wild goat, cabra montés.^[12][5] The DLE adds a bivalve mollusc of Cantabria, an ear of wheat left standing in the stubble in Salamanca, a girl in colloquial Chilean Spanish and a paintbrush in Colombia.^[5] Moliner also has a loaded die in Colombia and Cuba and a light two-wheeled carriage in Chile.^[13] In Costa Rica young people use it for “girlfriend”, and in Nicaragua for a battered old bicycle.^[14] In the Canaries and elsewhere cabra loca is a flighty woman.^[15]

The verb cabrear, “to make angry”, recorded from 1891, comes from the goat's typical fits of temper.^[3][4]

Timeline

• 965 – the first record.^[3][4]
• 1086 – cabras in a document listed by the DEMel.^[8]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid names the castle of Cabra, a place name.^[9]
• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar counts goats among Jacob's flocks.^[9]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario prescribes goat's urine.^[16]
• c. 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz uses cabra de fuego for a blister.^[10]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the word from Latin carpere.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology capra and the siege engine.^[12]
• 1891 – the derived verb cabrearse “to get angry”.^[3][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A goat, the domestic ruminant with backward-curving horns and a beard, an agile climber of steep places: Las cabras subían por la ladera.^[5][1]
2. The female of this animal, a nanny goat.^[5][1]
3. (historical) A siege engine for throwing stones; a battering ram (ariete).^[5][12]
4. A bivalve mollusc of the Cantabrian coast.^[5]
5. (Salamanca) An ear of grain left standing in the stubble.^[5]
6. (Chile, colloquial) A girl.^[5][1]
7. (Colombia) A brush for painting.^[5]
8. (in the plural) Marks on the legs (cabrillas).^[5]

Word family

• cabrero
• cabrerizo
• cabrilla
• cabrío
• cabrito
• cabrón
• cabrear
• encabritarse

Related words

• capricornio
• cabruno
• Latin caper
• Portuguese cabra

Usage notes

The Academy's 1884 dictionary defined cabra as the female of the cabrón; the DLE uses the word for the species and for the female.^[12][5] The Academy's 1884 dictionary records the proverb cabra coja no quiere siesta, “a lame goat takes no siesta”.^[12] Cabra del Tíbet is the long-haired Tibetan goat.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1410
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, 715
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cabra
5. ^ 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. cabra
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cabra
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cabra
10. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 87
11. ^ 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. 367
12. ^ a b c d e 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
13. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cabra
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. cabra
15. ^ 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. cabra
16. ^ 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. cabra