castillo

Forms

castillo m (plural castillos)^[1] Old Spanish castiello kept the diphthong -ie- until the 14th century; in Castilian texts castillo prevails from the middle of that century, while Leonese and Aragonese texts keep castiello longer.^[2] The apocopated castil or castel occurs only in place names (Castilsabás); castil is also a Mozarabic form.^[3] The DEMel records castiello, castielo, castieillo, castieyllo and castello.^[4] Asturian has castiellu and Aragonese castiello.^[4][5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish castiello, inherited from Latin castellum (“fort, stronghold”).^[3][7][8][1] The Latin word is a diminutive of castrum (“fortified camp, fortification”).^[3][9][1]

The same word is Portuguese castelo, Galician castelo, Asturian castiellu, Catalan castell, Occitan castel, French château and Italian castello.^[10][6][1] The Latin plural ⟨castella⟩ survives in many place names of the Peninsula, among them ⟨Cazalla⟩, ⟨Castalla⟩ and the name of Castile, Castilla.^[3][6]

The noun goes back to Proto-Italic *kastro-, which de Vaan glosses “part, share”, and to Proto-Indo-European *ḱs-tro-.^[11] The word is usually explained as a “cut-off part”, then a fenced area and a camp; de Vaan prefers the root *ḱes- (“to cut”), which also underlies castrāre.^[11]

The Latin diminutive suffix gave the Old Spanish diphthong ⟨ie⟩ of the old form, which was later reduced to ⟨i⟩.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is castiello in a charter of 972, the exchange of the place of Covarrubias between the Abbot Belasco and Count García Fernández of Castile, in the sense “walled building fortified with towers, bulwarks and ditches”.^[2][3] A Leonese charter of about 998, copied in 1020, has the half-Latin spelling castello.^[2] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has the full form: al castiello entrava, “he went into the castle”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the word named a castle or fortified town, and in the plural the movable towers used in a siege; once it means a royal palace.^[13] Derivatives appear early: castellano “lord or warden of a castle” in the Cid, castillero (1220–1250) and castillejo (about 1250).^[3][7]

Autoridades adds the ship's castle, the raised deck at the bow or stern, and the wooden tower that the ancients set on elephants.^[14] The 19th-century Academy dictionaries add the cell of the queen bee, the firework display called castillo de fuego and the phrase hacer castillos en el aire “to build castles in the air”.^[15][16] Today the DLE also lists a stack of planks, the heraldic figure of one or more towers and the forecastle of a ship.^[8]

In Chile a castillo is a pile of planks set out to dry, in Argentina a kind of cart, and in Ecuador a frame of canes hung with fruit and dishes, given to the owners of estates at their fiestas.^[17][18]

Timeline

• 972 – castiello in a Castilian charter.^[2][3][7]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has castiello and castellano.^[12][3]
• c. 1223 – the Semejanza del mundo has the form castillos.^[12]
• 1220–1250 – castillero, in Berceo.^[7][3]
• mid-14th century – castillo prevails over castiello in Castilian texts.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin castrum and castellum.^[19]
• 1532 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the coin game castillo y león, played like heads or tails.^[21]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records the ship's castle and the war tower on elephants.^[14]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records castillo de fuego and the proverb castillo apercibido no es decebido.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology from Latin castellum.^[22]

Meanings

Noun

1. castle: a stronghold enclosed by walls, bulwarks, ditches and other fortifications.^[8][1]
2. A wooden tower once used in war, carried on the back of animals.^[8]
3. The cell of a honeycomb in which the queen bee is reared.^[8][23]
4. The load space of a cart, from the ladder to the top of the side poles.^[8]
5. A stack of planks.^[8]
6. (heraldry) A figure of one or more towers, joined by curtain walls.^[8]
7. (nautical) The part of the upper deck between the foremast and the bow; the forecastle raised at that point.^[8]

Word family

• castillejo
• castillero
• castillete
• encastillar
• castillado
• castellano
• castellar

Related words

• Castilla
• castro
• Latin castellum
• French château

Usage notes

Castillo de fuego is a framework of fireworks set off at public festivities, and castillo de popa is a rare name for the poop deck.^[8] Hacer castillos en el aire means to build up hopes without any ground.^[16] Castillo is also a Spanish surname.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. castillo
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 917
4. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. castillo
5. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. castiellu
6. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 1519
7. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. castillo
8. ^ 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. castillo
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. castellum
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1745
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. castillo
13. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 104
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 224
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 188
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 161
17. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 334
18. ^ Tobar, Carlos R. (1907), Consultas al Diccionario de la lengua, 2nd ed., Barcelona: Imprenta de la Revista Ibérica, p. 101
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 312
20. ^ 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. castillo
21. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 457
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 224
23. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. castillo