cebo

Forms

cebo m (plural cebos)^[1] Old Spanish wrote cevo, ceuo and çeuo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish cevo, inherited from Latin cibus (“food”).^[4][5][6][1] Outside Spanish the word lived on as a popular word only in Portuguese cevo, in the Catalan dialect words atxevo (“poisoned bait for snakes”) and atxeu (“bait for birds”), and in some Sardinian and Italian dialects.^[4] The Asturian cebu means “feed; bait”, and Italian cibo is a learned form.^[7][8] The verb cebar continues the derivative Latin cibāre (“to feed”).^[4]

De Vaan finds no good Indo-European etymology, since the root shape would be irregular, and considers the Latin noun possibly a loan, perhaps from Ancient Greek κίβος (kíbos, “box, chest”) or κίβισις (kíbisis, “pouch”), as Thurneysen proposed.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) has the lord supply the plough and the yoke and the çeuo delos bueyes “the feed of the oxen”.^[3] Berceo uses the word for human food: santiguava su cevo quando querié comer “he blessed his food when he was about to eat”.^[10][4]

Semantic evolution

The general sense “food”, as in Latin, was used from the 13th to the 16th century.^[4][5] The special sense “a piece of food given to an animal to catch it” has antecedents in Latin and appears in the 14th century; at the same time the word narrowed to “feed for animals”, as in the Celestina and Saint Teresa.^[4] The Moamín (1250) has a chapter on the ceuos that suit hunting birds.^[11]

The Diccionario de Autoridades gives food in general, bait for birds, animals and fish, and the figurative sense of whatever excites or feeds a passion or vice.^[12] Terreros records cebo de escopeta, the fine powder put in the touch-hole of a gun, and the Academy defined the word as priming powder from 1817; its 1899 edition adds the charge of ore fed to a furnace.^[13][14][15] Moliner records the sense “dry hay” in Cantabria.^[16] For animal feed the usual word today is pienso.^[17]

Timeline

• 1218–1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes, for the feed of oxen.^[3]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos, for human food.^[3][10]
• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre asks on what food the Israelites lived in the desert.^[3]
• 1250 – the Moamín, for the food of hunting birds.^[11]
• 14th century – the sense “bait”.^[4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin cibus and esca.^[18]
• 1499 – the Celestina speaks of storks feeding their parents as these once fed them.^[10]
• 1624 – cebo as a variant of cefo, a monkey.^[19]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the figurative sense.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds the priming powder of firearms.^[14]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the charge of ore for a furnace.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. Food given to animals to feed, fatten or lure them.^[6][1]
2. (fishing) bait, real or artificial, used to attract fish: Puso una lombriz como cebo.^[6][1]
3. A priming charge of explosive placed in firearms, shells, torpedoes or blast holes to set off the main charge.^[6][16]
4. (metallurgy) The charge of ore fed to a furnace at one time.^[6][16]
5. (figurative) A lure or incentive; something that feeds a feeling or passion: El regalo era solo un cebo para que firmara.^[6][16]
6. (Cantabria) Dry hay.^[16]

Related words

• cebada
• cebador
• cebar
• Portuguese cevo
• Latin cibus

Usage notes

The DLE has a second, rare cebo, a long-tailed monkey, from Ancient Greek κῆβος (kêbos, “long-tailed monkey”); it is a variant of cefo, which Corominas first records in 1624, taken through Latin cephus.^[6][19][20] Cebo should not be confused with sebo “tallow”, from Latin sebum.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cebo
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cebo
4. ^ 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. 2, s.v. cebo
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cebo
6. ^ a b c d e f g 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. cebo
7. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. cebu
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b c 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. 661
11. ^ 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. cebo
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 250
13. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 389
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 191
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 213
16. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cebo
17. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cebo
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. cebo
19. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 15
20. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
21. ^ 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. 292