catarro

Forms

catarro m (plural catarros)^[1] Old Spanish also had the form cadarro, with /d/ for /t/, in Alfonso X's Libro de las Cruces of 1259.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin catarrhus, a medical word that the Latin writers took from Ancient Greek κατάρροος (katárrhoos, “catarrh, a flowing down”).^[4][5][6][1] The Greek noun comes from καταρρέω (katarrhéō, “to flow down”), formed from κατά (katá, “down”) and ῥέω (rhéō, “to flow”).^[1][7] The DHLE notes that the Latin word appears in the 4th century in Marcellus Empiricus, spelt ⟨catarrus⟩, and in the 5th century in Caelius Aurelianus, spelt ⟨catarrhus⟩.^[2]

García de Diego calls the Castilian word a learned one, beside the popular Catalan cadarn.^[8] Coromines explains the Catalan form as an alteration of the Latin word, in which the strong trill was split into /rn/, as in other words of the Pyrenean and Hispanic dialects.^[9] The medieval Galician-Portuguese cadarron meant “a heavy catarrh”.^[4] The Latin word also gave Italian catarro, French catarrhe and Portuguese catarro.^[10][1]

The Diccionario de Autoridades observed that the Greek origin called for the spelling ⟨catharro⟩, but that common use went the other way.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Alfonso X's astrological Libro de las Cruces of 1259, which names it among the illnesses of an epidemic year: emfermedades de tos & de cadarro & tysi “illnesses of cough, catarrh and consumption”.^[3][2] The sense there, according to the DHLE, is the medieval one: a morbid flow of the body's humours.^[2] Corominas, who did not know this record, dated the word from the Crónica de Juan II of about 1460.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

In the medical prose of the 15th century the word named a discharge running down from the head; the CDH has it in Estéfano de Sevilla's Visita y consejo de médicos (before 1400) and in Chirino's Menor daño de la medicina (before 1429), where it settles in the chest.^[12] Alonso de Palencia defined it in 1490 as a humour that falls from the upper parts of the body to the lower ones.^[13] Covarrubias gave the same account in 1611, and named romadizo as its synonym.^[14]

The DHLE traces how the sense narrowed: to the symptoms of the respiratory tract, such as sneezing, mucus and cough, first in Francesillo de Zúñiga's Crónica burlesca (1525–1529); to whooping cough in 1710; to digestive symptoms in Feijoo (1742); to influenza, as catarro epidémico, in 1802; and in the 1820s and 1830s to discharges of the urinary and genital organs.^[2] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 recorded the joking phrase al catarro, con el jarro, which recommends plenty of wine for a cold.^[15]

In Argentina the word also means bronchitis.^[6] In El Salvador it is slang for money gained unlawfully.^[16] In rural Puerto Rico it covers any illness of this kind.^[17]

Timeline

• 1259 – first record, as cadarro, in Alfonso X's Libro de las Cruces.^[2][3]
• before 1400 – catarro in Estéfano de Sevilla's medical treatise.^[12]
• c. 1460 – the Crónica de Juan II, the first record known to Corominas.^[4][5]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario defines it.^[13]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary renders Latin catarrhus with romadizo.^[18]
• 1560 – the first record in the Americas, in Yucatán.^[19]
• 1570 – first entered in a dictionary, Casas's Italian–Spanish vocabulary.^[2]
• 1604 – first record of the derivative catarroso.^[5]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains it as a flow from the head to the throat and chest.^[14]
• 1710 – used for whooping cough.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary records the phrase al catarro, con el jarro.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A discharge or flow from the mucous membranes, especially those of the nose.^[6]
2. Inflammation of the mucous membranes, acute or chronic, with more mucus than usual; catarrh.^[6][20]
3. (everyday use) A cold: Con este frío he pillado un catarro.^[1][21]
4. (Argentina) Bronchitis.^[6]
5. (El Salvador, slang) Money gained unlawfully.^[16]

Word family

• catarral
• catarroso
• acatarrar

Related words

• diarrea
• romadizo
• Catalan cadarn
• Latin catarrhus

Usage notes

Common verbs with it are coger, pescar and tener un catarro; the verb acatarrarse means “to catch a cold”.^[20][22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. catarro
3. ^ a b c 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. catarro
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 922
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. catarro
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. catarro
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 161
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. catarrhus
9. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 2, 379
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1761a
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 230
12. ^ 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. catarro
13. ^ 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. 651
14. ^ 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. 459
15. ^ 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. 226
16. ^ 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. catarro
17. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. catarro
18. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. catarro
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. cadarro
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. catarro
21. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. catarro
22. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. catarro