centauro

Forms

centauro m (plural centauros)^[1] Old Spanish texts mostly spell it çentauro.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin centaurus, from Ancient Greek κένταυρος (kéntauros, “centaur”).^[3][4][5][1] In Homer and Hesiod the Greek word named a wild people living between Pelion and Ossa in Thessaly; only later did it name monsters half man and half horse.^[6]

Wiktionary calls the origin of the Greek word unclear, and mentions a compound of κεντέω (kentéō, “to goad”) and ταῦρος (taûros, “bull”), from bull-fighting or herding, and a link with Sanskrit गन्धर्व (gandharva), which would require a substrate loan or heavy remodelling.^[1] Coromines also points to this link with the Vedic word.^[7] The Academy derived the word from the Sanskrit in 1884, and Monlau read it as “bull-goader”.^[8][9]

The same Latin word gave Catalan centaure, French centaure, Italian centauro and Portuguese centauro.^{[10][11][12][13]}

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word from Alfonso X's Libros del saber de astronomía (1256–1276).^[3][4] In the Ochava esphera of 1277 it names the constellation: centaurus nombran en latin a esta figura, et en castellano la llaman centauro “in Latin they call this figure centaurus, and in Castilian centauro”.^[14] Alfonso's Estoria de España (c. 1270) tells how Hercules defeated the centaurs, a great lineage of fine knights.^[15][14]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the word named both the mythical horsemen of the histories and the southern constellation.^[14][16] Covarrubias explained the myth in 1611: the Thessalians were the first to tame horses, and to their neighbours horse and rider seemed one creature, as the Spaniards on horseback seemed to the peoples of the Indies.^[17]

The Diccionario de Autoridades added a figurative sense, a man made of opposite natures, quoting Estebanillo González: Centáuro a lo pícaro, medio hombre y medio rocín.^[18] The Academy's dictionaries kept the constellation as a second sense into the 20th century.^[8][19] The plant centaurea (1555), also centaura, is named after the centaur.^[3][9]

Timeline

• 1256–1276 – first record, in Alfonso X's Libros del saber de astronomía.^[3][4]
• c. 1270 – the Estoria de España tells of Hercules and the centaurs.^[15]
• 1277 – the Ochava esphera names the constellation.^[14]
• 1513 – Nebrija's Vocabulario glosses it “half horse”, with Latin centaurus.^[20]
• 1555 – first record of the plant names centaurea and centaura.^[3][4]
• 1588 – first record in the Americas, in New Granada.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the myth through the first horsemen of Thessaly.^[17]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades adds the figurative sense.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. A centaur, a creature of Greek mythology, half man and half horse.^[5][1]
2. (astronomy) Centauro, a large constellation of the southern sky.^[8][19]

Word family

• centaurea
• centaura

Related words

• hipocentauro
• Latin centaurus

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. centauro
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 32
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. centauro
5. ^ a b 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. centauro
6. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. Κένταυρος
7. ^ 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. 10, 10
8. ^ a b c 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
9. ^ a b Monlau, Pedro Felipe (1856), Diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana (ensayo), Madrid: Imprenta de la Sociedad Literaria y Tipográfica, p. 228
10. ^ 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, 667
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. centauro
13. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 204
14. ^ a b c d 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. centauro
15. ^ 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. centauro
16. ^ 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. 672
17. ^ 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. 581
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. vol. 2
19. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 366
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 323
21. ^ 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. centauro