candela

Forms

candela f (plural candelas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin candēla (“candle”), and has kept the Latin form unchanged since the earliest Old Spanish texts.^[2][3][4][1] The same Latin word is Portuguese candeia, Galician candea, Catalan candela, Occitan candela, French chandelle and Italian candela.^[5][6] Through Medieval Greek and Arabic it also gave Spanish candil “oil lamp”, which Wiktionary calls its doublet.^[7][8][1]

The Latin noun is formed from candeō (“to shine, glow”) with the suffix -ēla.^[9][1] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *kandē- (“to shine”) and connects it with Welsh cann (“brilliant”), though the vowel ⟨a⟩ of the Latin verb is unexpected for a root Proto-Indo-European *kend-.^[10] Corominas notes that the old sense “fire, glowing fuel” is not recorded in Latin but follows directly from the meaning of the verb “to burn”.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has the plural in the sense “candles”: the abbot of Cardeña comes out to greet the Cid „con lunbres e con candelas” “with lights and with candles”.^[11][2] In another line of the poem the Cid has candles set on the altar.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish candela was the ordinary word for a wax or tallow candle, used in church offerings and in the fueros.^[11][12] Alfonso X's prose also used it for the candlestick that holds the candle.^[13] The sense “fire, glowing fuel” is found in the Fuero Juzgo and in Juan Ruiz, and survives in Andalusia and in Peru, Colombia, Cuba and the Mexican Gulf coast.^[2] Autoridades noted that the word was by then less used than vela for the candle, but common in Andalusia for the embers of the fire.^[14]

Covarrubias (1611) explains the phrase acabarse la candela “the candle is burning out” both of a life coming to its end and of the auctions in which bids were accepted until a lit candle burnt down.^[15] Corominas traces encandilar “to dazzle” to candela “fire”, with the later influence of candil.^[3][2] Today the word also names the SI unit of luminous intensity.^[4][16] In the Caribbean and Venezuela candela means a large fire, and figuratively a lively, bold or naughty person.^[17][4]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has candelas “candles”.^[11][3]
• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo, the first hit in the CDH not known from a later copy, tells of a candle that no wind could put out.^[11]
• 1240 – the first record of the sense “fire”, according to Corominas.^[3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's prose uses the word for the candle and for the candlestick.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin candela and lucerna as its equivalents.^[18]
• 1513 – the first record in the Americas, tallow candles in Puerto Rico.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the phrases acabarse la candela and estar con la candela en la mano.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records the Andalusian sense “embers of the fire”.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. candela”.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. A candle, a stick of wax or tallow with a wick that is burnt for light.^[4][1]
2. A candlestick.^[4][21]
3. The catkin or flower of the chestnut, holm oak or cork oak.^[4]
4. The gap left by the pointer of a balance when it tips towards the thing being weighed.^[4]
5. (colloquial) Fire, burning fuel, especially a light for a cigarette.^[4][21]
6. (physics) The candela, the SI unit of luminous intensity (symbol cd).^[4][16]
7. (colloquial, Álava) A glow-worm; an icicle.^[4]
8. (Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela) A large fire, a blaze.^[4][17]
9. (colloquial) A beating: dar candela “to give someone a thrashing”.^[21]

Adjective

1. (Caribbean, Venezuela, Ecuador) Of a person: lively, cheerful; in Cuba and Puerto Rico also naughty and restless, of a child.^[17][1]

Word family

• candelaria
• candelero
• encandilar
• candelilla
• candelada

Related words

• candelabro
• matacandelas
• candil
• Latin candela

Usage notes

The phrase a mata candelas referred to the final reading of a sentence of excommunication, during which the candles were put out in water.^[22][23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 801
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. candela
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. candela
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1340
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. candela
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. candil
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 93
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. candēla
10. ^ 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. candeō
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. candela
12. ^ 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. 604
13. ^ 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. candela
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 110
15. ^ 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. 409
16. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. candela
17. ^ 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. candela
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 309
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. candela
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 198
21. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. candela
22. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. candela
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 167