caoba

Forms

caoba f (plural caobas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Taíno caoban (“mahogany”), the word of the Taíno of Santo Domingo.^[2][3][1][4] Friederici classes it as Island Arawak of Haiti and quotes Las Casas, who wrote that the island's people gave the tree that name “with the o long”.^[5] From this Corominas concludes that the stress fell on the o, against the end-stressed form the Academy's historical dictionary had given; hence the Venezuelan caóbano, and the stress of the older caóbana.^[2]

The DLE and the Academy's dictionary since 1884 call it a Carib word.^[6][7] Alvarado also takes it as Taíno, and reports that Bayo derived it from Tupi taúba, a Brazilian name.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Boyd-Bowman's earliest record is from Mexico in 1531: cargas de leña y caoba “loads of firewood and mahogany”.^[9] Corominas's first record is Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo (1535), with both caoban and caoba, who calls it one of the largest and best trees of Hispaniola, with a very red wood from which fine doors and tables are made.^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

The wood soon reached Spain: John Minsheu's dialogues (1599) set the red mahogany of Havana beside ebony and ivory, an inventory of Philip II's goods lists a lectern de caoba de las Indias, and Lope de Vega names caobas among exotic trees.^[10] Autoridades (1729) describes a large tree of Havana, Cuba and other parts of the West Indies, with a very hard wood without knots and of a colour like cinnamon; it gives caobana as another name and calls both words Indian, brought into Spanish by those who went to the Indies.^[11]

The Academy's dictionary of 1843 adds the sense “the wood of the tree”; the colour sense, as an adjective and a noun, is in its edition of 2001.^[12][13] In Cuban colloquial speech the word is also a name for the penis.^[14][15]

Timeline

• 1531 – the first record, in Mexico, in a list of loads of firewood and mahogany.^[9]
• 1535 – Fernández de Oviedo describes the tree of Hispaniola under the names caoban and caoba.^[2][5]
• c. 1580 – José de Acosta writes caoba.^[5]
• 1599 – Minsheu's dialogues speak of red mahogany from Havana.^[10]
• 1729 – Autoridades has the word, with the variant caobana.^[11]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary adds the sense “wood of the tree”.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy calls it a Carib word.^[7]
• 2001 – the Academy's dictionary records the colour sense.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. mahogany: an American tree of the family Meliaceae, about 20 metres tall, with a straight thick trunk, compound leaves, small white flowers in hanging panicles and a woody capsule shaped like a turkey's egg, prized for its wood.^[6][1]
2. The wood of this tree: Compraron una cómoda de caoba en la subasta.^[6][1]
3. (also masculine) A reddish colour like that of mahogany wood.^[6][1]
4. (Cuba, vulgar) The penis (pene).^[14][15]

Adjective

1. Mahogany-coloured, reddish brown: unas botas caoba.^[6][1]

Word family

• caobilla
• caobo

Usage notes

As a colour adjective it is usually invariable: zapatos caoba.^[14] Older and regional names of the tree are caobana and caobo, and the Venezuelan caóbano.^[11][2]

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, 827
3. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. caoba
4. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. caoba
5. ^ a b c d Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 128
6. ^ a b c d e 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. caoba
7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 203
8. ^ Alvarado, Lisandro (1921), Glosario de voces indígenas de Venezuela, Caracas: Victoria, p. 53
9. ^ a b 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. caoba
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. caoba
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. caoba
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 137
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. caoba
14. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. caoba
15. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. caoba