caramillo

caramillo¹ reed pipe

Pronunciation

• /kaɾaˈmiʝo/, [ka.ɾaˈmi.ʝo], /kaɾaˈmiʎo/^[1]

Forms

caramillo m (plural caramillos)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the reed pipe is inherited from Old Spanish caramiello, inherited from Late Latin calamellus (“little reed”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin word is a diminutive of calamus (“reed”), and the pipe was named for the material it was made of.^[3][4] The Latin noun is taken from Ancient Greek κάλαμος (kálamos).^[6][2]

The same Latin word is Italian caramella, Old French chalemel, French chalumeau and Catalan caramella, recorded since the 13th century.^[7][8] Spanish has dialect forms caramilla and carambillo, and Asturian has caramiellu “cane, small stem”.^[9] Its doublets are caramelo, from Portuguese, and the French loans chirimía and churumbela.^[1][10][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, as caramiello, is in a New Testament translation of before 1260 (Escorial manuscript I-j-6), in a list of musicians: los tannedores caramiello “the pipe players”.^[2][11] It names a small high-pitched pipe of cane, wood or bone;^[11] Alfonso X's General estoria (about 1275) uses it for the pipe of Mercury, which had seven reeds, the panpipe sense.^[2][11]

Semantic evolution

From the 14th century on it is the pipe of shepherds: Juan Ruiz's shepherdess boasts that she can tañer el caramillo “play the pipe”, and Juan del Encina's shepherds carry it with crook and pouch.^[11][12] Nebrija gives caramillo de pastor as the equivalent of Latin calamus.^[13] Covarrubias (1611) explains it as a thin flute of very high pitch, named after the reeds of the first flutes, and also proposes a Hebrew origin.^[14]

The plant sense, a saltwort like the barrilla, is recorded in 1785 in Palau y Verdera's translation of Linnaeus, and enters the dictionaries with Salvá in 1846.^[2] The panpipe sense, after Alfonso X, is not recorded again until the early 20th century, and the Academy's dictionary has had it since 1925.^[2]

Timeline

• before 1260 – caramiello in the Escorial New Testament.^[2]
• c. 1275 – Alfonso X's General estoria uses it for the panpipe.^[2]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz has the form caramillo, the DCECH's first record.^[3][4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives the Latin equivalent calamus.^[13]
• 1588 – the first record from the Americas, in the New Kingdom of Granada.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from the reeds of the first flutes.^[14]
• 1729 – Autoridades defines it as a thin flute with a very high treble sound.^[16]
• 1785 – the plant sense first appears.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin calamellus.^[17]
• 1925 – the Academy's dictionary adds the panpipe sense.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small flute (flauta) of cane, wood or bone with a very high sound; a shawm or shepherd's pipe.^[5][1]
2. A panpipe (zampoña), an instrument of several pipes.^[5][2]
3. (botany) A plant of the same genus and uses as the barrilla (Salsola vermiculata), with an upright woody downy stem and pointed pale green leaves.^[5][18]

caramillo² heap; gossip, tale

Pronunciation

• /kaɾaˈmiʝo/, [ka.ɾaˈmi.ʝo], /kaɾaˈmiʎo/^[1]

Forms

caramillo m (plural caramillos)^[1]

Etymology

The word for a heap or a piece of gossip is of unknown origin according to the DLE.^[5][19] Corominas explains it as a blend from Spanish caramillo¹ + encaramar: the name of the pipe gave the form, and the verb, which formerly meant “to pile up”, gave the sense.^[20] He rejects a sense change from the pipe itself, and Krüger's suggestion of a loan from Catalan caramull with a change of suffix, since the Castilian word is too old and too deeply rooted.^[20] The sense “gossip, tale” grew out of “heap”, as what is piled up on someone.^[20]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the sense “disorderly heap of things” in Diego Sánchez de Badajoz's Recopilación, and “gossip, intrigue, lie” from the Celestina and in the same author.^[20]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades (1729) gives the sense “lie and intrigue that causes ill feeling, stirred up by a troublemaker's gossip”, used with armar, levantar and traer, and quotes Saint Teresa's Camino de perfección and the second part of the Quijote: levantando caramillos en el viento “raising castles in the air”.^[16] Terreros glosses it as a quarrel, intrigue or fancy.^[21] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 adds the sense “heap of things badly placed on top of one another”.^[22] The derivative encaramillotar “to perch up high” is in Lope de Vega.^[20] In Mexico, Santamaría notes, a caramillo is not a mere piece of gossip but a slander made up with ill intent.^[23]

Timeline

• 1729 – Autoridades records the figurative sense “lie, intrigue”.^[16]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds the sense “badly made heap”.^[22]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary puts the heap and the gossip in a second article, without etymology.^[17]
• 2001 – the Academy's dictionary calls it of unknown origin.^[24]

Meanings

Noun

1. A badly made heap (montón).^[5][18]
2. Gossip (chisme), intrigue, a lie (embuste); a fuss or quarrel, in the set phrases armar un caramillo and levantar un caramillo.^[5][18]

Word family

• encaramillotar