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cajeta

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word cajeta

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1386 Pero López de Ayala, Libro de la caza de las aves More words from the 14th century
Ultimate origin
Latin capsa

Pronunciation

  • /kaˈxeta/, [kaˈxe.t̪a][1]

Forms

cajeta f (plural cajetas)[1] Medieval records have caxeta, caseta and the Latinising capseta, cabseta and causeta.[2][3]

Etymology

It is a diminutive formed from Spanish caja + -eta.[1][4][5][6] DICCA-XV derives it from Aragonese caxa, which continues Latin capsa (“box”).[7] The base word comes from the Latin, probably through Catalan caixa.[8]

The confection takes its name from the container: in Mexico it was sold in round boxes of thin wood with a lid, and the name passed from the box to the sweet inside it.[9][10][11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Pero López de Ayala's book on hawking (1386) tells the falconer to carry unas que llaman cajetas, que se fazen de barva de vallena “some that are called cajetas, which are made of whalebone” or of wood, for feeding the falcons.[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 15th century a caxeta is a small box: of silver for keeping a letter in the Demanda del Sancto Grial (c. 1470, known from a print of 1535), painted ones in the Esopete (before 1482), boxes of solimán for the face in the Cancionero of Pero Guillén (before 1492).[3] In Aragon the word meant the alms box of a church; the Academy marked it as old and Aragonese from 1817.[12][13] Salvá (1846) recorded a tobacco box in the Americas, and a vulgar sense, the female genitals.[14]

In Mexico and Central America the cajeta was the round box of thin wood for sweets and jellies, and then the sweet itself: cajeta de leche, cajeta de guayaba.[10][15] Santamaría (1942) names the cajetas of Celaya as a famous Mexican industry.[9] Today the sweet is above all a very thick goat's-milk caramel; in Costa Rica and Honduras it is a kind of turrón, as Gagini already described it in 1893.[16][17] The phrase de cajeta “first-rate” is Mexican and Central American.[18][15][11]

Regional senses include a lower lip that sticks out in Ecuador and Peru, a small baked maize cake in Peru, an oyster in Lanzarote (1776), and part of a fishing net in Málaga.[19][15][20][21][22] In Argentina and Paraguay it is a vulgar word for the vulva.[23][24][1]

Timeline

  • 1134 – DEMel's first record, the Latinising form capseta in a charter of Fanlo.[2]
  • 1386 – López de Ayala's falconers carry cajetas.[3]
  • before 1482 – the Esopete has painted caxetas.[3]
  • 1521 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico.[25]
  • 1587 – Corominas's date for the word.[8]
  • 1776 – caxetas are oysters in Lanzarote.[21]
  • 1817 – the Academy records the Aragonese alms box.[12]
  • 1846 – Salvá adds the American tobacco box.[14]
  • 1893 – Gagini describes the Costa Rican sweet.[17]
  • 1899 – García Icazbalceta describes the Mexican box and its sweet.[10]
  • 1917 – Alemany records de cajeta “excellently” in Mexico and Costa Rica.[18]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (Aragon) An alms box for collecting donations.[16][13]
  2. (Costa Rica, Honduras) A kind of turrón made in various shapes and sizes.[16][17]
  3. (Mexico, Central America) A very thick caramel sweet of goat's milk boiled with sugar: Untó el pan con cajeta.[16][20][1]
  4. (Mexico, Central America, Caribbean) A box in which sweets, jelly or turrón are kept or sold.[20][26]
  5. (Argentina, Paraguay; vulgar) The vulva.[24][23][1]

Word family

  • cajetilla
  • caja
  • Catalan caixa

Usage notes

De cajeta means “excellent”, and in the Dominican Republic dar cajeta means “to make trouble”.[11][16] The nautical cajeta, a plaited cord of spun yarn, has its own origin: the DLE takes it from English gasket.[16][27]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cajeta
  3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cajeta
  4. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
  5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cajeta
  6. ^ 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. 581
  7. ^ 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. cajeta
  8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. caja
  9. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 267
  10. ^ a b c García Icazbalceta, Joaquín (1899), Vocabulario de mexicanismos comprobado con ejemplos y comparado con los de otros países hispano-americanos, México: La Europea, p. s.v. cajeta
  11. ^ a b c Gómez de Silva, Guido (2001), Diccionario breve de mexicanismos, México: Academia Mexicana / Fondo de Cultura Económica, p. 39
  12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 157
  13. ^ a b Borao, Jerónimo (1908), Diccionario de voces aragonesas, 2nd ed., Zaragoza: Imprenta del Hospicio Provincial, p. 12
  14. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 189
  15. ^ a b c Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 188
  16. ^ a b c d e f 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. cajeta
  17. ^ a b c Gagini, Carlos (1893), Diccionario de barbarismos y provincialismos de Costa Rica, San José: Tipografía Nacional, p. 107
  18. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 299
  19. ^ Tobar, Carlos R. (1907), Consultas al Diccionario de la lengua, 2nd ed., Barcelona: Imprenta de la Revista Ibérica, p. 82
  20. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. cajeta
  21. ^ 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. cajeta
  22. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 113
  23. ^ a b Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 81
  24. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cajeta
  25. ^ 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. cajeta
  26. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. cajeta
  27. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 186
Cite this entry

“Cajeta.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/cajeta. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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