callo

Forms

callo m (plural callos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin callum (“hard skin, callus”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin /ll/ became the palatal /ʎ/ written ⟨ll⟩, which in most of the Spanish-speaking world is now pronounced /ʝ/.^[1] The same word is Portuguese calo, Galician calo, Catalan call and Italian callo.^[5][6][7]

The Latin noun (also masculine callus) meant a hard substance: the flesh of animals or fruit, a hide, a scar.^[8] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *kalno- (“hard”), perhaps first an adjective, which would explain the wavering gender and the verb calleō (“to be hard”); he compares Old Irish calath and Welsh caled (“hard”), but finds the Indo-European origin uncertain.^[8] Wiktionary also proposes Proto-Indo-European *kal- (“hard”).^[1]

Corominas defends the derivation of the sense “tripe” from the same word: the pieces of stomach eaten as tripe are the firmest and somewhat hard parts, not the thin ones that are thrown away.^[2] He rejects a proposed origin in Italian caglio (“curdled milk”).^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

A literary man of 12th-century Zaragoza bore the Mozarabic nickname herraqállus “shoe-calluses”, which is the reason the BDELC dates the word to the 12th century.^[2][3] The first record in a Spanish text is in the Libro de los caballos (c. 1275), in the sense “end of a horseshoe”: el callo de la ferradura.^[9][10] Corominas's first record of the usual sense is the Gran conquista de Ultramar (c. 1295), of a man so devout that calluses grew on his knees.^[2][11]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 defined the callus as hard rough skin made by work or rubbing, and recorded the figurative hazer callos en el trabajo “to grow hardened to work” and hazer callos en el vicio “to grow old in vice”.^[12] He also noted the callo de herradura, a worn piece of a horseshoe from which strong tools were made.^[12] The sense “tripe, pieces of the stomach of a cow or sheep eaten stewed” appears in Mateo Alemán's Guzmán de Alfarache (1599).^[2][3] The Academy added the surgical sense, the scar that forms where the pieces of a broken bone join, in 1869.^[13]

In colloquial Spanish of Spain callo is a very ugly person; the DRAE 2001 still restricted it to a woman.^[4][14] The phrase dar el callo means to work hard.^[15][1] In Mexico callo de hacha is the edible muscle of several bivalves, and in the Dominican Republic callo is an extremely tiresome person.^[4][16]

Timeline

• 12th century – the Mozarabic nickname herraqállus in Zaragoza.^[2][3]
• c. 1275 – el callo de la ferradura in the Libro de los caballos.^[9][10]
• c. 1295 – calluses on the knees in the Gran conquista de Ultramar.^[11][2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin callum and the callo de herradura.^[17][18]
• 1571 – the first records from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[19]
• 1599 – callos “tripe” in Mateo Alemán.^[2][3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records hazer callos en el trabajo.^[12]
• 1869 – the Academy adds the surgical sense of the scar of a broken bone.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A callus or corn: a hardening formed in animal or plant tissue by pressure, friction or injury, especially on the hands and feet.^[4][1]
2. Each of the two ends of a horseshoe.^[4]
3. Each of the metal plates, shaped like horseshoes, used to protect the hooves of working cows and oxen.^[4]
4. (medicine) The bony scar that forms where the fragments of a broken bone join.^[4][20]
5. (Spain, colloquial) A very ugly person.^[4][1]
6. (in the plural) tripe: pieces of the stomach of a cow, calf or sheep, eaten stewed;^[15] callos a la madrileña is a dish typical of Madrid.^[4][15]

Word family

• encallecer
• callista
• calloso
• descallador

Related words

• callicida
• callosidad
• Latin callum
• Portuguese calo
• Catalan call

Usage notes

Dar el callo is colloquial for “to work hard”.^[15][1] Callo is also the first person singular present of callar “to be silent”, which is a separate word; most early CDH hits for the spelling are forms of that verb.^[9]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 773
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. callo
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. callo
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. callum
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1531
7. ^ 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
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. callo
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. callo
11. ^ a b 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. 593
12. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 392
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 138
14. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. callo
15. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. callo
16. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. callo
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 309
18. ^ 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. callo
19. ^ 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. callo
20. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. callo