casa

Forms

casa f (plural casas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin casa (“hut, cottage”), and Old Spanish casa has the same form.^[2][3][4][1] In Vulgar Latin it replaced domus (“house”) as the word for a dwelling;^[5][6] Isidore of Seville still defined it as a rustic shelter woven of stakes, reeds and brushwood.^[5][6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese casa, Galician casa, Asturian casa, Catalan casa, Occitan casa, Italian casa and Romanian casă.^[7][8][1] In rapid speech before a noun it was shortened to cas, meaning “at the house of” in prepositional phrases, and in the same way to Asturian ca, Catalan ca, Italian ca and the preposition French chez.^[2][9]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain.^[10][1] Walde and Hofmann derive it from a root *kat- (“to plait”), and others compare words for “hut” from *ket-; de Vaan thinks that its vowel /a/ and its single /s/ after a short vowel make a loanword more likely.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a charter of 938.^[2][3] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) already has the word for the house as a building and property: the people of Burgos fear they would lose „los averes e las casas” “their goods and their houses”.^[11] The Fuero de Avilés of 1155 forbids anyone to lodge in a man's house against his will.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In the Cid the word also means the household of servants and a town or city (Molina, buena e rica casa).^[13] Berceo uses it for a monastery.^[5] In Alfonso X's prose it means a building, a lord's estates, a square of the chessboard and an astrological house.^[14]

In the Middle Ages and the Golden Age the plural casas was common for a single dwelling; it survives in rural Argentina and in casas consistoriales “town hall”.^[2][3] Covarrubias in 1611 described the casa as a poor, rustic dwelling and listed several fanciful etymologies, among them Latin casu “fall”, because any wind threatens it.^[15] The Academy's dictionary gave the etymology “Del lat. casa, choza” from 1884.^[16]

In Colombia and Chile casa is one decade of the rosary, a use Cuervo and Román criticised.^[17][18] In the Dominican Republic and Venezuela it is the person who settles disputes in a gambling house.^[19][20]

Timeline

• 938 – first record, in a charter.^[2][3]
• 1084 – the derivative casero is recorded.^[2][3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses casa for a house, a household and a town.^[13][11]
• 1155 – the Fuero de Avilés uses it for a dwelling.^[12]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for an astrological house.^[14]
• 1283 – Alfonso X's book of chess uses casas for the squares of the board.^[14]
• 1516 – the first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias discusses the word's origin.^[15]
• 1651 – casino is borrowed from Italian.^[3]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A house, a building to live in: una casa de tres plantas.^[4][1]
2. A house of one or few floors for one family, as opposed to a piso.^[4]
3. A home, one's flat or dwelling: Ven a casa.^[4]
4. A household, family; a lineage sharing a surname: la casa de Austria.^[4][22]
5. A firm, business establishment.^[4]
6. A social or cultural association, and its premises: Casa de Andalucía.^[4]
7. A square of a chessboard or other board game.^[4][14]
8. The estates, vassals and revenues of a lord.^[4][14]
9. (astrology) One of the twelve divisions of the sky, a casa celeste.^[4][14]
10. (Colombia) A decade of the rosary.^[19][17]

Word family

• casal
• caserón
• casería
• caserío
• casero
• caseta
• casilla
• casillero
• encasillar
• casona
• casucha
• casar

Related words

• casino
• casamata
• Latin casa
• French chez

Usage notes

In expressions of place the word usually goes without an article or possessive: estar en casa, volver a casa.^[22] The shortened ca (en ca de) is still common in Asturias and other regions.^[2]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 901
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. casa
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. casa
5. ^ a b c Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 218
6. ^ a b du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. casa
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. casa
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. casa
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. chez
10. ^ 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
11. ^ 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. casa
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. 640
13. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 150
14. ^ a b c d e f 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. casa
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. 451
16. ^ 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. 219
17. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 329
18. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 278
19. ^ 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. casa
20. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. casa
21. ^ 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. casa
22. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. casa