centeno

Forms

centeno m (plural centenos)^[1] Old Spanish texts write both centeno and çenteno.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin centēnum (“rye”), a word of the Latin of Hispania, from centēnus (“a hundred each”), formed on centum (“hundred”).^[4][5][1] The name came from the belief that rye yields a hundred grains for every grain sown: Pliny already says that it grows in any soil with a hundredfold return, and Isidore of Seville explains the name in this way.^[4][6][7] Corominas notes the Latin word in Diocletian's Edict of 301, in Isidore and in a 10th-century gloss, and rejects Meyer-Lübke's doubts, which rested on a comparison with Old Leonese candena, the name of a quite different plant, stressed on its first syllable.^[4]

The DLE, like the Academy's dictionaries since 1884, explains the Latin noun as short for a phrase with hordeum (“barley”)^[8][9]; Segura Munguía has one with trīticum (“wheat”).^[10]

Of the Romance languages only Spanish and Portuguese kept the word: Portuguese centeio, written Old Galician-Portuguese centeo in the 13th century, and Galician centeo.^[4][11][12] Mozarabic glosses of 1219 have Mozarabic chenteno, and the word passed into Berber.^[4][13] The other Romance languages, Catalan and Gascon included, use descendants of sēcale (“rye”).^[4]

The Latin numeral goes back to Proto-Indo-European *dḱmtom (“hundred”), as do Greek ἑκατόν (hekatón) and Gothic 𐌷𐌿𐌽𐌳 (hund).^[14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word from a charter of 1212 in Oelschläger's list.^[4][5] The earliest text in the CDH is a testament of about 1218 that leaves measures of grain, uno de trigo & otro de centeno “one of wheat and another of rye”, and the 13th-century fueros of Cáceres and Alcalá pay wages medio de trigo et medio de centeno “half in wheat and half in rye”.^[3] From the start it meant the grain and the cereal plant.^[3][15]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Partidas list rye with wheat among the crops from which first fruits were owed.^[15] Nebrija gives Latin typha as its equivalent.^[16][17] Covarrubias (1611) calls it the bread grain of country people and labourers, explains the name by the hundred grains each seed gives, and records the saying dieron en ello como en centeno verde, said of people who use something up greedily, because beasts are fond of the tender green rye.^[18] The Diccionario de Autoridades describes the plant, repeats the hundredfold explanation, and reports the belief that bad wheat turns into rye.^[19] From 1843 the Academy distinguished the plant from its seed and gave the scientific name Secale cereale.^[20]

In the Americas rye is recorded in 1768 in the Río de la Plata.^[21] In León the word also names a field sown with rye, and a wild grass, wall barley.^[22]

Timeline

• 1173 – DEMel lists the forms centeno and çenteno in documents of this year from Burgos and León.^[2]
• 1212 – a charter in Oelschläger's list, the first record Corominas gives.^[4][5]
• c. 1218 – a testament leaves measures of wheat and of rye.^[3]
• 1219 – Mozarabic glosses have the form chenteno.^[4]
• 1256–1300 – Alfonso X's Partidas list rye among the crops owing first fruits.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it with Latin typha.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the saying dieron en ello como en centeno verde.^[18]
• 1768 – first record in the Americas, in the Río de la Plata.^[21]
• 1843 – the Academy gives the scientific name Secale cereale.^[20]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin centenum.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. rye, an annual cereal grass much like wheat, with a slender, tough, flexible stem one to two metres tall and a long, narrow, flattened spike that sheds its grains easily.^[8][1]
2. The grain of this plant, used like wheat: Este pan lleva harina de centeno y de trigo.^[8][23]
3. (León) A field sown with rye.^[22]

Word family

• centenero
• centenoso
• centenal

Related words

• ciento
• centésimo
• Portuguese centeio
• Latin centum

Usage notes

The spelling is shared with a rare adjective centeno “hundredth”, directly from Latin centēnus, whose feminine centena is also a noun “a set of a hundred”.^[8][24] It is found from the 13th century: Berceo's Loores have la oveja centena “the hundredth sheep”, and the Partidas la centena parte “the hundredth part”.^[25][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. centeno
3. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. centeno
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 33
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. centeno
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. centeno
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. centeno
8. ^ a b c d 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. centeno
9. ^ 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. 234
10. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 128
11. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 787
12. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 111
13. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. centenum
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. centum
15. ^ 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. centeno
16. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 323
17. ^ 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. centeno
18. ^ 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. 582
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 271
20. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 157
21. ^ 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. centeno
22. ^ a b Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. centeno
23. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. centeno
24. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. centenum
25. ^ 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. 673