ceniza

Forms

ceniza f (plural cenizas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote cenisa, çenisa, çeniça and ceniza.^[2][3] Cenisa is still the form of the Aragonese speech of Ansó.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish cenisa, inherited from Vulgar Latin *cinisia (“ashes mixed with embers”), a collective noun derived from Latin cinis (“ash”).^[3][4][5][1] In Spanish the derivative replaced the simple word, as it did in Portuguese and in several Sardinian, Rhaeto-Romance and Dalmatian dialects.^[3][4] The modern form, with ⟨z⟩, arose from the older one by assimilation, as in cereza and cerveza;^[3] Berceo still writes it with ⟨s⟩, Juan Ruiz with ⟨z⟩.^[3]

The same derivative is Portuguese cinza and Sardinian kisina, both meaning “ash”, and Italian cinigia, “hot ash with sparks still in it”; Romanian cenușă comes from a variant *cinusia.^[3] Catalan is the only Romance language without a form of this type.^[3]

Corominas finds the Latin formation difficult: the /s/ was kept although the oblique cases of the Latin noun had /r/, so he follows Meyer-Lübke in assuming a vulgar neuter *cinis beside the attested vulgar neuter cinus.^[3] A spelling ⟨cinissa⟩ occurs in a 6th-century manuscript.^[3] He compares pavesa, from *pulvisia, and cabeza, from capitia.^[3] The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Indo-European *ken- (“dust, ashes”), and its cognates include Ancient Greek κόνις (kónis, “dust, ashes”).^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel lists the form cenisa in a document of 1181 from the Documentos del Pilar, a collection of charters.^[2] The first record in a running Spanish text is La fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[7][2] In this work (about 1200, in a 13th-century manuscript) God tells Moses and Aaron to take vuestros pannos plenos de ceniza de la fornaz “your cloths full of ashes from the furnace”.^[7][2]

Semantic evolution

The word has meant the residue of burning from the first records, as when Troy tornó çeniça e carbones in the Libro de Alexandre.^[7] Alfonso X's Estoria de España already uses it for the remains of a dead person.^[8] Covarrubias wrote that in Scripture ashes signify humility and penance, and that the Church reminds the faithful of this on Ash Wednesday.^[9] Autoridades defined the plural cenizas as the remains of the dead, an allusion to the ancient custom of cremation.^[10]

The Academy also records technical senses: the vine disease oidium, the ground for priming canvases in painting, and ceniza azul and ceniza verde, two copper pigments.^[5][11] In the Dominican Republic a ceniza is a bottle of beer so cold that it is covered with frost.^[12][13]

Timeline

• 1181 – the form cenisa in the Documentos del Pilar.^[2]
• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar has ceniza de la fornaz.^[7]
• 1246–1252 – Berceo's Milagros has tornado cenisa e carbones.^[7][3]
• 1250 – the Moamín and the Lapidario use the word.^[14][8]
• 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España uses it for a dead woman's ashes.^[8]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz rhymes ceniza with atiza.^[3]
• 1532 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico, of receiving ashes on the first day of Lent.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the ashes of Ash Wednesday.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. ash: the light grey powder left after something has burnt completely: Sacudió la ceniza del cigarro.^[5][1]
2. (agriculture) Oidium (oídio), powdery mildew.^[5][16]
3. (usually in the plural) The remains of a dead person, especially after cremation.^[5][1]
4. (painting) A mixture of ash and glue used to prime canvases.^[5][16]
5. (of a colour) ashen, ash-grey.^[5][16]
6. (Dominican Republic) A bottle of beer so cold that it is covered with frost.^[12]

Word family

• cenicero
• ceniciento
• cenizo
• encenizar
• cenicilla

Related words

• acendrar
• Latin cinis
• Portuguese cinza

Usage notes

Miércoles de Ceniza is Ash Wednesday.^[1][15]

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. ceniza
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 29
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ceniza
5. ^ 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. ceniza
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ 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
8. ^ 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. ceniza
9. ^ 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. 578
10. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 266
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 233
12. ^ 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. ceniza
13. ^ 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. cenizo
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b 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. ceniza
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ceniza