calvo

Forms

calvo (feminine calva, masculine plural calvos, feminine plural calvas)^[1] Old Spanish spelled it calvo, caluo or calbo; many early records are bynames, written Calvo or Calbo.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish calvo, inherited from Latin calvus (“bald”).^[3][4][1][5] Vox counts it among the words of the inherited stock, together with the Latin family of calavera and calvario.^[6]

The same word is Portuguese calvo, Galician calvo, Asturian calvu, Catalan calb, Occitan cau, French chauve and Italian calvo.^[5][7][1] The French word was first chals and took its form from the feminine.^[8]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *klH-e/ou̯o- (“bald”), and is related to Sanskrit कुल्व (kulvá, “bald, thin-haired”).^[9] De Vaan notes that /lw/ gives Latin /ll/, so the Latin word must come from a form with a vowel between /l/ and /w/.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to 1050.^[3] The first record of the ordinary sense in a dated text is Alfonso X's Lapidario (1250–1279): a stone ground in wine and rubbed on la cabeça calua makes hair grow.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The Diccionario de Autoridades (1729) gave the sense “bald” and, by likeness, bare ground and threadbare cloth, with Quevedo's ferreruelos calvos and Góngora's calvos riscos.^[11] It also recorded proverbs: la ocasión es calva, because opportunity has no hair to seize it by, and calvo vendrá que calvo vengará.^[11][12] The feminine calva, a bald patch, is recorded from 1495, and the compound calvatrueno from 1605.^[3]

Timeline

• 1050 – first record according to Corominas.^[3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has cabeça calua “bald head”.^[10]
• 1495 – first records of calva, calvez and encalvecer.^[3]
• 1571 – first record in the Americas, in Molina's Mexican vocabulary.^[13]
• 1605 – first record of calvatrueno.^[3]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the proverb la ocasión es calva.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin calvus.^[14]

Meanings

Adjective

1. bald: having lost all or part of the hair of the head.^[4][1]
2. Of land, bare: without vegetation.^[4][1]
3. Of cloth, threadbare: having lost its nap.^[4]

Noun

1. A bald person: El calvo de la segunda fila no dejaba de reír.^[4][1]

Word family

• calva
• encalvecer
• calvero
• calvez
• recalvastro
• calvatrueno

Related words

• calvicie
• calavera
• calvario
• Latin calvus
• Portuguese calvo

Usage notes

Ni tanto ni tan calvo is a colloquial way of rejecting an exaggeration in either direction, mainly in Spain.^[4][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. calvo
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. calvo
4. ^ 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. calvo
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 1301
6. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. calvo
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1532
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. chauve
9. ^ 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, p. s.v. calvus
10. ^ 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. calvo
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 79
12. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 320
13. ^ 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. calvo
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 191
15. ^ León, Víctor (1980), Diccionario de argot español y lenguaje popular, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, p. s.v. calvo