camarada

Forms

camarada m or f by sense (plural camaradas)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish cámara + -ada, because the soldiers who were camaradas slept and ate in one room.^[2][3][1][4] At first it was a collective noun, a group of soldiers sharing quarters, and only later a single companion.^[2][5] cámara is from Latin camera (“vaulted room, chamber”), from Ancient Greek καμάρα (kamára, “vault, vaulted chamber”).^[1][5]

Corominas and the Vox dictionary say the word spread from Spanish to the other European languages.^[2][6] Wiktionary lists French camarade and Italian camerata as borrowings, and German Kamerad and English comrade, which came through French;^[1][5] Etymonline derives the English word from French, from Spanish or from Italian.^[1][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the collective sense “group of soldiers who sleep and eat together” to 1555.^[2] The CDH has it a few years earlier, in Núñez de Alba's Diálogos de la vida del soldado (1552), where an unruly soldier counts on the backing of sus camaradas.^[7] The 1557–1558 Viaje de Turquía uses la camarada de los caballeros “the company of the knights”, still collective and feminine.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The sense “companion” is recorded from 1592.^[2] Covarrubias (1611) explains the word as a companion of the room who eats and sleeps in the same lodging, used among soldiers for a close friend in the same company.^[8] In the Quijote it is still feminine, una camarada for a fellow soldier, as in Mateo Alemán and Espinel; it is masculine in the Diablo cojuelo.^[9] Autoridades (1729) has both the companion and the company itself.^[10] At the end of the 17th century it also meant an artillery battery, from the soldiers who served it; the Academy still lists this sense as obsolete.^[2][3] The political sense, a fellow member of a party or trade union, is in the current dictionary;^[3][5] Etymonline dates the socialist and communist use of comrade as a form of address to 1884.^[3][5]

Timeline

• 1552 – sus camaradas in Núñez de Alba's Diálogos de la vida del soldado.^[7]
• 1555 – Corominas's first record, in the collective sense.^[2]
• 1570 – first record in the Americas, in Peru.^[11]
• 1590s – English comrade, “one who shares the same room”.^[5]
• 1592 – the sense “companion”.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains it as a companion who shares a room.^[8]
• end of the 17th century – the sense “artillery battery”.^[2]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from cámara.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (masculine or feminine) A person who lives and eats with another; a companion.^[3][1]
2. (masculine or feminine) A comrade, someone who goes about with others on friendly, trusting terms: Fuimos camaradas en la mili.^[3][13]
3. (masculine or feminine; politics) In some parties and trade unions, a fellow member.^[3][1]
4. (feminine) A company or group of comrades.^[3]
5. (feminine, obsolete) A battery of artillery.^[3]

Word family

• camaradería

Related words

• camarero
• French camarade
• Italian camerata
• English comrade

Usage notes

In the 16th and 17th centuries the word was often feminine even for a single man (la qual camarada in the Quijote); today it takes the article of the person's sex, el camarada, la camarada.^[9][3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cámara
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. camarada
4. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 138
5. ^ a b c d e f g Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
6. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. camarada
7. ^ 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. camarada
8. ^ 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. 396
9. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 234
10. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 85
11. ^ 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. camarada
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 179
13. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. camarada