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canasta

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word canasta

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Back-formation
First attested
c. 1300 Fuero de Alarcón More words from the 13th century
Ultimate origin
Latin canistrum

Pronunciation

  • /kaˈnasta/, [kaˈnas.t̪a][1]

Forms

canasta f (plural canastas)[1]

Etymology

It is a back-formation from Spanish canastillo (“small basket”), according to Corominas and the Academy: the diminutive was the older and commoner word, and the names of the bigger baskets, this one and canasto, were drawn from it.[2][3][4] The diminutive continues Latin canistellum, a diminutive of canistrum (“basket”).[2][3] From the Latin form came canestiello (Juan Ruiz still has canestillo), which became canastiello through dissimilation before the stressed syllable together with the pull of the first vowel.[2]

Corominas rejects the older derivation straight from Ancient Greek κάναστρον (kánastron), because it would not explain the loss of the /r/; forms with ⟨r⟩ such as canastro and Catalan canastra he takes as secondary, influenced by the suffix -astro.[2] Medieval texts in Catalan have only canasta, which lives on in Tortosa and Valencia.[2] The descendants of the Latin diminutive spread over dialects of Italy, Sardinia and France, over Occitan and the Iberian Peninsula, while the shorter word is limited to Ibero-Romance and some Occitan dialects.[2] Wiktionary instead derives the Spanish word from Vulgar Latin *cannastra, from the Latin noun, and the REW sets it among the outcomes of the Greek type beside the Latin one.[1][5] Portuguese canastra is recorded from the 16th century, and Cunha traces it to Vulgar Latin *cannastrum.[6]

The OLD and Wiktionary take the Latin noun from the Greek word for a reed basket.[7][1] Corominas notes that the Greek forms are late and unstable, so that Ernout and Meillet consider them borrowings from Latin.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest record is the Fuero de Alarcón (about 1300, in a late 13th-century manuscript), among the gear of the grape harvest: cueuanos e canastas e carrales e tinas “panniers and baskets and casks and vats”.[8] The Seville port ordinance of 1302 taxes a canasta de sardinas “basket of sardines”.[8] Corominas's first record is Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor (1330–1343), in the proverb quien faze la canasta, fará el canastillo “whoever makes the basket will make the little basket”.[2][8]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages the word named a wide wicker basket for bread, grapes, olive paste or fish, and Nebrija gave Latin canistrum for a large one.[9][8][10] Covarrubias in 1611 derived it from canistrum and listed its uses: washing, the grape harvest, taking food to the fields, and selling bread and vegetables.[11] Autoridades defined it as a round, wide-mouthed wicker basket with two handles and noted the variant canastro.[12]

The Academy added an olive measure of the Aljarafe of Seville, half a fanega, in 1817, and a nautical sense, the turns of rope that hold a furled sail or flag while it is hoisted, in 1899.[13][14] In the 20th century it became the name of a card game, recorded in English from 1945 as a Uruguayan game played with two packs, in which a canasta is seven cards of the same rank;[15] Etymonline suggests the image of a woven basket.[15] The Academy now also lists the hoop of baloncesto (basketball) and the basket scored.[4]

In the Americas canasta is the everyday word for any wicker basket in Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru and Puerto Rico, and Mexico has alzar la canasta “to withdraw someone's support”.[16][17] Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic and Colombia use it for a car's roof rack, and in Chilean and Argentine slang it means “prison”.[18][19]

Timeline

  • c. 1300 – the Fuero de Alarcón lists canastas among the vessels of the grape harvest.[8]
  • 1302 – the port ordinance of Seville taxes baskets of sardines.[8]
  • 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz uses canasta beside canestillo;[20] Corominas's first record.[2][20]
  • c. 1400 – canastilla is recorded.[3]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin canistrum for a large basket.[10][21]
  • 1512 – first records in the Americas, baskets of sardines and tallow in Puerto Rico.[22]
  • 1513 – canasto is first recorded.[3]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin canistrum.[11]
  • 1726–1739 – Autoridades defines the two-handled wicker basket.[12]
  • 1817 – the Academy adds the olive measure of the Aljarafe of Seville.[13]
  • 1899 – the Academy adds the nautical sense.[14]
  • 1945 – English borrows canasta as the name of the card game.[15]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A wide-mouthed wicker basket, usually with two handles: Volvió del mercado con la canasta llena de naranjas.[4][1]
  2. Canasta, a card game played with two or more packs of French cards between two sides.[4][1]
  3. In canasta, a set of seven cards of the same value.[4]
  4. (basketball) The metal hoop fixed to the backboard, with its bottomless net.[4][1]
  5. (basketball) A basket scored, worth one, two or three points.[4]
  6. (regional) In the Aljarafe of Seville, a measure of olives, half a fanega.[4]
  7. (nautical) The turns of rope that hold a sail or flag furled while it is hoisted, so that one pull frees it.[4]
  8. (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Colombia) A roof rack on a car.[18][19]
  9. (Chile, Argentina, slang) Prison.[18]

Word family

  • canastero
  • encanastar

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g 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, 795
  3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. canastillo
  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. canasta
  5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 674
  7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. canasta
  9. ^ 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. 602
  10. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 309
  11. ^ 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. 406
  12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 106
  13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 166
  14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 183
  15. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  16. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 200
  17. ^ García Icazbalceta, Joaquín (1899), Vocabulario de mexicanismos comprobado con ejemplos y comparado con los de otros países hispano-americanos, México: La Europea
  18. ^ 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. canasta
  19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. canasta
  20. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 93
  21. ^ 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
  22. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
Cite this entry

“Canasta.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/canasta. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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