calle

Forms

calle f (plural calles)^[1] Old Spanish also had the shortened form cal, common in the Libro de Alexandre, the Vida de Santa María Egipciaca and Juan Ruiz;^[2] Covarrubias still knew it in names such as Cal de Francos.^[3][2] The DEMel lists cal, call, cayll, caylle and caille among the medieval forms.^[4] Old Leonese also has cal, and Asturian cai.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish calle (also cal), inherited from Latin callis (“footpath, especially a cattle track”).^[3][6][7][1] The sense “street” had already appeared in Latin by the 7th century, in Isidore and in Latin glosses, by way of “narrow way between two walls”.^[3][6] Wiktionary compares the keeping (or restoring) of the final /e/ after /ʎ/ with valle.^[1]

The same Latin word is Romanian cale (“road”), poetic Italian calle (“way”), Catalan call (“narrow passage between walls or rocks”) and Portuguese cale (“wooden channel; river gorge”).^[3][8] Latin used the word as masculine (Virgil) and as feminine (Livy); it is masculine in Italian and Catalan but feminine in Spanish, Portuguese, Venetian and Tuscan.^[3] In Catalan it fell together with the word for “callus”, from callum, and with the Catalan word for the Jewish quarter, from the Hebrew word for “assembly”.^[9] Corominas suggests that the form cal in the 12th-century debate poem of Elena and María may be that Hebrew word, in the sense “ghetto”, rather than the word for “street”.^[3]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain: Walde and Hofmann reconstruct *kalnis and reject a link with “callus”, while de Vaan finds that link plausible in meaning.^[10] Wiktionary mentions the traditional derivation from Proto-Indo-European *kel- (“to drive”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is the Fuero de Avilés of about 1155, which fines whoever throws sweepings from a house into the streets: Qui vassura gectar de una Kasa a las calles pectet V soldio.^[11][3][6] The sense is already the town street, as in the Castilian fueros of the early 13th century (Zorita, Cáceres, Alcalá).^[12]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the word named the street between houses;^[11] Alfonso X's chronicle tells how Abderrahmán paved all the streets of Córdoba.^[11] The older rural sense “path” may once have existed, since it is still current in Mendoza (Argentina) for a country road, and some Castilian towns kept the neighbouring Romance names rúa and carrera for certain streets.^[3]

Covarrubias gives the phrases echar un negocio en la calle “to make a matter public” and calle hita “house by house”.^[2] The Diccionario de Autoridades added the row of trees in an avenue and the figurative sense “pretext, way out”.^[13] In the cant of the 17th century calle meant “freedom”, the opposite of prison, a sense the modern DLE still lists.^[14][7] From Salvá (1846) to the 1884 Academy dictionary calle was also a village that shared the fueros of a larger town “as if it were inside its walls”.^[15][16] Alemany (1917) added the printers' sense, a line of spaces running through several lines of type.^[17]

The modern DLE adds the lane of a running track or pool and the people as public opinion (la voz de la calle).^[7] In Central America and Colombia calle is the street that runs in one direction of the grid, in contrast with the avenida or carrera; in Peru it means a block.^[18] Basque kale and Tagalog kalye were borrowed from Spanish.^[1]

Timeline

• 1155 – the Fuero de Avilés has las calles.^[11][6]
• 1211 – the first record in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[19]
• c. 1250 – the diminutive calleja is first recorded.^[6]
• c. 1335 – callejuela is first recorded.^[6]
• c. 1490 – callejero is first recorded.^[6]
• 1513 – Nebrija's Vocabulario defines it as the public way in a town, Latin via publica.^[20]
• 1609 – Hidalgo's cant vocabulary glosses it as “freedom”.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records cal and the phrase echar un negocio en la calle.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin callis.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A street: a public way, usually paved, between buildings or plots in a town: Vivimos en una calle muy estrecha.^[7][1]
2. The outdoors, outside the buildings of a town: Los niños jugaban en la calle hasta tarde.^[7][21]
3. A path between two rows of trees or other plants.^[7][13]
4. In some board games, a row of squares along which a piece moves.^[7][21]
5. freedom, in contrast with prison or detention: Salió a la calle tras dos años de condena.^[7]
6. The people, ordinary citizens as a whole who protest, demand or give their opinion.^[7][21]
7. (historical) A village that depended on a town and shared its fueros as if it lay within it.^[7][16]
8. (architecture) Each of the vertical divisions of an altarpiece.^[7]
9. (sport) A lane in athletics or swimming.^[7][1]
10. (printing) A river of spaces running down or across a page of type.^[7][17]
11. (Mexico, Peru) The stretch of a street between two corners, a block.^[7][18]

Word family

• calleja
• encallar
• azotacalles
• bocacalle
• callejero
• callejón
• callejuela
• correcalles
• callejear

Related words

• callo
• Latin callis
• Catalan call
• Basque kale

Usage notes

Set phrases include calle de la amargura “a long ordeal”, echar a la calle “to throw out, dismiss” and dejar a uno en la calle “to ruin someone”.^[7][22] In addresses the word is abbreviated c/.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 392
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, 771
4. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. calle
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1288
6. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. calle
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. calle
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. callis
9. ^ 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, 431
10. ^ 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. callis
11. ^ a b c d 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. 592
12. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. calle
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 72
14. ^ a b Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 166
15. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 194
16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 192
17. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 309
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. calle
19. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. calle
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 309
21. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. calle
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 138