cedra

Forms

cedra f (plural cedras)^[1] Old Spanish texts write cedra, cedras and çedra.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin citera, the popular form of Latin cithara (“lyre, cithara”) that the Appendix Probi corrects.^[1][3][4] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek κιθάρα (kithára), with the common Latin wavering between /er/ and /ar/ in an unstressed syllable.^[1][5]

Wiktionary calls it a doublet of the learned cítara, of cítola and of guitarra.^[1] Corominas dates the learned word to about 1440 and calls the second a semi-popular form of the 13th–15th centuries.^[6] The third came from Arabic, which took the Greek word.^[7] The DCECH has no article of its own for this word and sends the reader to the learned form.^[8] Related forms elsewhere are Italian cetra, Romanian ceteră and Old Occitan cidra.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEMel's first record is cedras in the Fazienda de Ultramar (1200–1250).^[2] The Libro de Alexandre (c. 1240–1250) lists it among the instruments at a feast: Cedra e viola que las coytas enbota “zither and viol that dull sorrows”.^[9][2]

Semantic evolution

The word stayed in medieval use for a stringed instrument of the cithara kind: Berceo's Duelo de la Virgen (c. 1255) has tocando instrumentos, cedras, rotas, e gigas “playing instruments, citherns, rotes and gigues”.^[9] Alfonso X's General estoria (1280) and a 14th-century Bible translation still use it.^[10] By the 19th century the dictionaries listed it only as an old word for cítara: Salvá (1846), Gaspar y Roig and Alemany (1917) all mark it as old.^[11][12][13] Moliner keeps it with the same label, and Wiktionary marks it as dated.^[4][1]

Timeline

• 1200–1250 – cedras in the Fazienda de Ultramar.^[2]
• c. 1240–1250 – çedra in the Libro de Alexandre.^[9][2]
• c. 1255 – Berceo's Duelo de la Virgen.^[9]
• 1280 – Alfonso X's General estoria.^[10]
• 1846 – Salvá lists it as an old word for cítara.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (dated, music) A zither or cítara, a stringed instrument.^[1][4][13]

Related words

• cítara
• cítola
• guitarra
• Latin cithara

Usage notes

Salvá and Gaspar y Roig also give cedra as an old form of sidra.^[11][12] García de Diego records a cedra “citron” in the Basque Country, from Latin citrum.^[14] The DHLE has a separate cedra, from cedro, for the wood of a tropical cedar (first in 1853), and Santamaría (1942) records it in Argentina for a plant also called cedro.^[15][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cedra
3. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1663
4. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cedra
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cítara
7. ^ a b Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. s.v. cithara
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 14
9. ^ a b c d 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. 662
10. ^ a b Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. cedra
11. ^ a b c Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 233
12. ^ a b Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 530
13. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 360
14. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1665
15. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. cedra
16. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 342