cereza

Forms

cereza f (plural cerezas)^[1] Old Spanish ceresa, also written çeresa;^[2] cereza or çereza is found from the 14th century.^[3][4][2] Galician and Portuguese have cereija, Galician also zreija, and Leonese zreiza.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish ceresa, inherited from Vulgar Latin ceresia, the popular form of Latin cerasium (“cherry”), itself from Ancient Greek κεράσιον (kerásion, “cherry (the fruit)”).^[3][4][6][1] In popular Latin the Greek word was adapted to Latin sounds, with /e/ for the inner /a/: ceresium is used by Anthimus, physician to the Merovingian king Theodoric, and the form with /e/ is also found in glosses.^[3] The neuter plural was then taken as a feminine singular, as with hoja and obra.^[7][8]

The Greek word names the fruit of the κερασός (kerasós, “bird cherry”).^[9][10] Beekes holds that this tree name is Anatolian or Pre-Greek, given its intervocalic /s/, since the improved cherry came from the Pontus, where a town was named “rich in cherries”.^[10] Corominas notes that some have thought the word Mediterranean and others Thraco-Phrygian, and reviews the Baltic and Slavic words for shrubs and roots that have been compared with it.^[3]

The modern consonant of the second syllable, where the old form had /s/, comes from a common kind of assimilation to the first consonant, as in ceniza and cerveza.^[3] Juan Ruiz already rhymes the word with corteza, pereza and naturaleza, but in 1490 Alonso de Palencia still writes cereso beside cerezo.^[3]

The same Latin form is Portuguese cereja, Galician cereixa, Asturian cereza, Catalan cirera, Occitan cerièra, French cerise, Italian ciliegia and Romanian cireașă.^[1][5] It also gave English cherry and German Kirsche.^[3] Coromines explains the /r/ of the Catalan word, found in place names from 1128, as an assimilation of an older form with /s/.^[11] Cunha thinks the Portuguese word may owe something to the Old Spanish form.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in a copy of the early 15th century), in its picture of the month of June: de çerezas maduras los çeresos cargados “the cherry trees laden with ripe cherries”.^[13][3][4] The sense was the fruit of the cherry tree, as it still is.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

Medieval texts use the word for the fruit: a 13th-century Spanish version of Ibn Bassal's treatise on agriculture tells when to sow cherries, and Juan Manuel tells of a death caused by a basket of cherries sent by a queen.^[13][14] The Marquis of Santillana's proverbs include a ome farto, las cereças le amargan “to a man who is full, cherries taste bitter”.^[14] Nebrija gave Latin cerasum as its equivalent.^[15]

Covarrubias in 1611 took the name from Cerasus, a city of Pontus from which Lucullus brought the cherry tree to Rome, and quoted an old song in which the thistle bears little cherries, meaning that a bad tree gives bad fruit.^[16] The Diccionario de Autoridades, following Laguna, sorted cherries into sweet ones, wild sour cherries and common guindas.^[17] From 1817 the Academy recorded the proverb cerezas y hadas malas, toman pocas y llevan hartas, for misfortunes that come linked together like cherries;^[18][19] Moliner explains a similar phrase by the long stalks that tangle.^[18][19] In 1884 the Academy derived the word from cerezo.^[20]

In Mexico the word is recorded from 1553, and a 1571 record pairs it with the native capulín.^[21] In the Caribbean, Central America and Colombia it names the husk of the coffee bean and the ripe red coffee berry;^[22][23][24] Alemany noted the Cuban use in 1917.^[22][23][24] In Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic it names a fruit of shape and colour like the European cherry from shrubs of the family Malpighiaceae.^[6][25][26] The name of the colour gave the adjective “cherry-red”; the Academy's 2001 dictionary also had the red of some minerals and of glowing metals, rojo cereza.^[6][27] Spanish passed the word to Tagalog seresa.^[1]

Timeline

• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre has çerezas beside the tree çeresos.^[13][4]
• 1257–1271 – the Repartimiento de Murcia has Çeresa as a surname.^[13]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor rhymes çereza with pereza; the BDELC dates the form with /θ/ from 1330.^[13][4][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin cerasum.^[15]
• 1553 – first record in Mexico.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the name from the city of Cerasus.^[16]
• 1817 – the Academy records the proverb cerezas y hadas malas.^[18]
• 1917 – Alemany records the Cuban sense “husk of the coffee bean”.^[22]

Meanings

Noun

1. cherry: the fruit of the cerezo, a small round drupe with a long stalk, smooth red skin and sweet juicy flesh: Compramos un kilo de cerezas en el mercado.^[6][1]
2. (Central America, Colombia, Cuba, Puerto Rico) The husk of the coffee bean.^[6][23]
3. (Mexico, Central America, Cuba, Puerto Rico) A ripe red coffee berry.^[23]
4. (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic) A fruit like the European cherry in shape and colour but different in taste, from shrubs of the family Malpighiaceae.^[6][25]
5. A dark red colour, like that of the cherry.^[6][19]

Adjective

1. Cherry-red, of the dark red colour of cherries: una blusa cereza.^[6][1]

Word family

• cerezo
• cerezal
• cereceda

Related words

• guinda
• Latin cerasium
• English cherry

Usage notes

As an adjective of colour it often stays invariable, though a plural cerezas is also used.^[1] Cereza mollar is the common soft sweet cherry, and cereza póntica is another name for the guinda.^[6][19] In Andalusia cereza was also used for a drop hanging from the nose.^[28]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cereza
3. ^ 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, 44
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cereza
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cerasea
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. cereza
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cereza
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b 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
11. ^ 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, 713
12. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 796
13. ^ 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. cereza
14. ^ a b 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. 679
15. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 324
16. ^ 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. 587
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 283
18. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 196
19. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cereza
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 236
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. cereza
22. ^ a b c Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 371
23. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. cereza
24. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 234
25. ^ a b 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. cereza
26. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 348
27. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. cereza
28. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 148