camisa

Forms

camisa f (plural camisas)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote camissa.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin camisia (“shirt”), first found in Latin in the 4th century.^[3][4][5] Saint Jerome was one of the first to use it, writing that soldiers wore linen garments that they called by this name.^[3][6] The DCECH relates it to Old High German hemidi, modern German Hemd, and Old English cemes, and holds that it reached Latin from Celtic;^[1] Thurneysen, Kluge, the FEW and Walde–Hofmann think it passed from Germanic to Celtic and then to Latin, but Corominas calls the problem intricate and unsolved.^[3] The DLE calls it Celtic.^[5] Wiktionary derives it from Proto-West Germanic *hamiþi (“shirt”), from Proto-Indo-European *ḱem- (“cover, clothes”).^[1] The REW notes that it appears at about the same time in Greek and Latin, and finds it hard to say whether it came from the East or from Gaul.^[7] The Greek word is Ancient Greek κάμασον (kámason) of the 4th century.^[3]

The same word is Portuguese camisa, Galician camisa, Asturian camisa, Catalan camisa, Occitan camisa, French chemise, Italian camicia and Romanian cămașă.^[7][8] The eastern forms (Romanian, Friulian, some Dolomitic dialects) point to a short stressed ⟨i⟩, the others to a long one;^[9] Corominas rejects Meyer-Lübke's view that the long vowel of the west is learned, since the word was foreign to Classical Latin.^[3]

Isidore of Seville derived the word from cama (“bed”), because people sleep in it;^[9] Covarrubias repeats this, and also reports that Mariana took it from the Goths and that others explained it from hemp, cáñamo.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a charter of 899.^[3][4] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140) the Infantes of Carrión strip their wives „en cuerpos e en camisas e en ciclatones” “down to their bodices, shifts and silk robes”, and „rompían las camisas e las carnes a ellas amas dos” “they tore the shifts and the flesh of both women”.^[10][11] The sense was an undergarment of linen or other cloth.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose uses the word for the linen undergarment that monks must not wear and for a priest's alb, and camisa romana for a rochet.^[12] Nebrija distinguished camisa de muger and camisa de varon.^[13][14] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as the linen garment worn next to the skin, and by extension the husk of some seeds and the skin a snake sheds.^[15] The Academy's edition of 1817 also lists the outer face of a wall in fortification, the old senses “alb” and “menstruation”, and a coat of whitewash.^[16] The modern shirt with collar, sleeves and buttons is the DLE's first sense; later technical senses include the gas mantle, a book's dust jacket and the liner of an engine's cylinders.^[5]

In the Canaries camisa is the husk of a maize cob, recorded by Viera y Clavijo in 1799–1812.^[17][18] In Bolivia and Chile it is the coarse paper put under wallpaper, and in El Salvador it is popular slang for a condom.^[19] Friederici notes that many indigenous peoples of the Americas took the word from Spanish for every sort of clothing; the Caribs used camicha for all cloth and garments in 1665.^[20] Wiktionary lists borrowings in Tagalog, Papiamentu and Classical Nahuatl.^[1]

Timeline

• 899 – first record, in a charter.^[3][4]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses it for a woman's shift.^[10][11]
• c. 1234–1275 – the Fuero de Cáceres fixes the price of a man's shirt at ten dineros.^[10]
• 1256–1300 – Alfonso X's legal prose uses it for an alb.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin subucula for a man's shirt.^[14]
• 1512 – the first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[21]
• 1513 – the derivative camiseta is first recorded.^[4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias repeats Isidore's derivation from cama.^[9]
• 1665 – Breton records camicha among the Caribs for all clothing.^[20]
• 1799–1812 – Viera y Clavijo uses camisas for the husks of maize in the Canaries.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A shirt: a cloth garment for the upper body, buttoned in front, usually with a collar and sleeves.^[5][1]
2. An undergarment of fine cloth reaching below the waist; a chemise.^[5]
3. The thin skin that covers some fruits, pulses and grains, such as the almond, the pea or wheat.^[5]
4. The skin that a snake sloughs off from time to time.^[5]
5. In the game of rentilla, the throw in which all six dice come up blank.^[5]
6. A coat of lime, plaster or white earth put on a wall when it is whitewashed.^[5]
7. A gas mantle.^[5][1]
8. A paper dust jacket that protects a book and bears its title.^[5]
9. A paper folder for a file or bundle of documents.^[5]
10. (printing) The cloth that forms the outer, softer cover of an inking roller.^[5]
11. (mechanics) A lining fitted into a housing, especially the liner of the cylinders of an internal-combustion engine.^[5]
12. (military) The outer face of a wall, which used to be faced with light-coloured stone or brick.^[5]
13. (Bolivia, Chile) Coarse paper put under wallpaper so that it sticks better.^[5][19]
14. (rare) Menstruation.^[5]
15. (Canary Islands) The husk of a maize cob.^[18]
16. (El Salvador, slang) A condom.^[19][1]

Word family

• camisero
• camisería
• camiseta
• camisola
• camisón
• descamisado
• encamisar
• encamisada
• camisa de fuerza

Related words

• Late Latin camisia
• Italian camicia
• Portuguese camisa

Usage notes

The camisa de fuerza is a straitjacket.^[5] In Asturian cambiar de camisa means to change one's ideas out of self-interest.^[22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 93
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 787
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. camisa
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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. camisa
6. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 205
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. camisia
9. ^ 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. 400
10. ^ 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. camisa
11. ^ a b c 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. 599
12. ^ 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. camisa
13. ^ 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. camisa
14. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 309
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 94
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 164
17. ^ 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. camisa
18. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. camisa
19. ^ 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. camisa
20. ^ a b Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 123
21. ^ 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. camisa
22. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. camisa