carne

Forms

carne f (plural carnes)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish carne, inherited from Latin carō (“flesh, meat”); like the other Romance forms it continues the stem carn- of the other cases.^[2][3][4][1] The same word is Portuguese carne, Catalan carn, French chair, Italian carne and Romanian carne.^[1][5][6] In most of France the word for meat as food was replaced by viande, because in Paris char (“flesh”) had fallen together with cher (“dear”).^[5]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *kerō(n) “piece of meat” and Proto-Indo-European *k(e)rH-n- (“piece”), related to Umbrian karu (“part”) and to verbs meaning “to separate”, Old Irish scaraid and Lithuanian skìrti.^[7] Wiktionary takes it back to *(s)ker- (“to cut”), the root of English shear.^[1] The first meaning in Latin was a piece of meat, as cut up at sacrifices and meals; the sense “flesh” as opposed to the spirit came later and became common in Christian Latin.^[8][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a charter of 1095 in Oelschläger's list of first records.^[2][3] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) compares a painful parting to tearing the nail from the flesh: „así·s' parten unos d'otros commo la uña de la carne”.^[9][10] In the Cid it is the flesh of the body, which a lance reaches or a sword misses.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Already in the 13th century the word covered the soft part of the body, meat as food, the body as the seat of the senses and of sensuality (one of the enemies of the soul, with the world and the devil), and human nature as opposed to the divine.^[12][10] Nebrija recorded the special use carne de membrillo “quince paste”.^[2] Covarrubias (1611) gives proverbs such as carne sin hueso no se da sino a don Bueso, said of people who want only the best for themselves.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades noted that carne alone meant the meat of sheep and cattle sold in the butcher's shops.^[14] The plural also means plumpness of the body (echar carnes “to put on weight”).^[15][1]

In several countries of the Americas carne is the heartwood of a tree (standard cerne).^[4][16] In Leonese it can mean bacon.^[17] Tagalog and Cebuano borrowed it as karne.^[1]

Timeline

• 1095 – first record, in a charter.^[2][3]
• 1131 – the derivative carnicero “butcher”, at first as carnicer.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses carne for the flesh of the body.^[9]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for meat that is cooked.^[12]
• 1258 – the compound carnestolendas “carnival”, from the Latin phrase for the Sunday before meat is given up.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin caro for the meat of a dead animal.^[18]
• 1518 – the first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme, of meat roasted on a barbacoa.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records proverbs on meat and bones.^[13]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the sense “meat sold to the public”.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin caro, carnis.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. flesh: the muscular part of the human or animal body.^[4][1]
2. meat for eating, from cattle, calves, pigs or sheep, especially as sold to the public.^[4][1]
3. Meat as food, from land animals and birds, as opposed to fish and seafood: Los viernes no comen carne.^[4][15]
4. The soft part of a fruit or tuber, under the skin; the pulp.^[4][1]
5. The material, bodily part of a person, as opposed to the spirit.^[4]
6. (religion) One of the three enemies of the soul, which inclines a person to sensuality.^[4]
7. (in the plural) Plumpness of the body: Desde que dejó de fumar ha echado carnes.^[15][1]
8. (Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Nicaragua) The heartwood of a tree;^[21] cerne.^[4]
9. (as an adjective, of a colour) Like the pinkish skin of white people: unas medias color carne.^[4]

Word family

• carnación
• carnada
• carnadura
• carnal
• carnaza
• carnoso
• descarnar
• encarnar
• carnear
• carnero
• carnicería
• carnicero

Related words

• cárneo
• cárnico
• carnívoro
• carúncula
• encarnación
• encarnado
• carnestolendas
• Latin caro
• Portuguese carne

Usage notes

The DLE has a separate carne² for the slightly hollow side of the knucklebone used in the game of tabas, marked with a figure like an S; it calls it of uncertain origin, perhaps the same word.^[4][21] Dozy proposed instead Arabic قرن (qarn, “horn”), because the figure looks more like a horn than an S, and Corriente, Pereira and Vicente consider an Andalusian Arabic form of it possible.^[22][23] Corominas takes the related carnicol “knucklebone” as probably a derivative of carne.^[24]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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, 878
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. carne
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. carne
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1706
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1481
7. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. chair
9. ^ 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. carne
10. ^ 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. 100
11. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. carne
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. carne
13. ^ 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. 443
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 185
15. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. carne
16. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 219
17. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. carne
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 311
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. carne
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. 214
21. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. carne
22. ^ Dozy, Reinhart; Engelmann, W. H. (1869), Glossaire des mots espagnols et portugais dérivés de l'arabe, 2nd ed., Leyde: Brill, p. 268
23. ^ Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. carne
24. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 880