charquear

Forms

charquear (first-person singular present charqueo, first-person singular preterite charqueé, past participle charqueado)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish charqui + -ear.^[1] Corominas lists it under the variant charque, and Wikcionario derives it from that form.^[2][3]

The DLE takes the noun from Quechua ch'arki.^[4] The first record of the Quechua word is in Domingo de Santo Tomás's Quechua lexicon of 1560, which gives it for Spanish tasajo.^[5] Friederici treats it as a Quechua word that was also borrowed into charqui, and quotes Garcilaso's use of it for dried meat in 1602.^[6] Corominas is more cautious: the origin may be native, but he is not sure that the Quechua word is not itself of Spanish origin, because Portuguese enxerca and enxarca, words of Arabic origin, have the same sense in Portugal, the first since the Middle Ages.^[2] The same family, with charqueada for the salting works, is used in Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Boyd-Bowman's first record is from Uruguay in 1776, in the spelling carquear: matar y carquear asta ocho reses “to kill and jerk up to eight head of cattle”.^[7] In 1782–1783 Basilio Villarino, exploring the Río Negro in Patagonia, writes that sixteen cattle were killed and charquearon that day, and that he would have salted them had he been sent salt.^[8]

Semantic evolution

In the 19th century the word belonged to the cattle country of Uruguay, Argentina and southern Brazil.^[9] Granada quotes Azara on Paraguay, where the meat was cut into strips as thin as a finger and dried in the sun and wind.^[10] Gaspar y Roig label it a provincial word of America for drying meat in the sun or air without salt.^[11] In Chile Medina notes that it was used for fruit as well, such as pears and apples.^[12]

From cutting meat into strips the verb came to mean wounding someone with many knife cuts, or killing them: Bayo records a fulano lo charquearon “so-and-so was murdered”.^[13][9][14] Malaret also gives an Argentine pronominal use, holding on tightly to the saddle when a colt bucks, which DAMER records for Argentina, Uruguay and Chile.^[9][14] In Bolivia it can mean to fail a student in an examination.^[15] The rural spelling charquiar is found in Ascasubi's Santos Vega (1872).^[8][14]

Friederici takes the English jerk, jerked meat, for a corrupted form of charqui.^[6]

Timeline

• 1560 – the Quechua charqui is first recorded, in Domingo de Santo Tomás's lexicon.^[5]
• 1602 – Garcilaso names the dried meat charqui;^[6][2] Corominas dates charque from the same year.^[6][2]
• 1776 – first record of the verb, as carquear, in Uruguay.^[7]
• 1782–1783 – Villarino uses charquear in his diary of the Río Negro.^[8]
• c. 1790 – Ignacio de Pasos writes of a charqueada in Paraguay.^[8]
• 1853–1855 – Gaspar y Roig enter it as a provincial word of America.^[11]
• 1872 – Ascasubi spells it charquiar.^[8]
• 1890 – Granada describes the cutting of the strips.^[10]
• 1910 – Bayo records the sense “to murder”.^[13]

Meanings

Verb

1. (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay) To make charqui of meat: to cut it into strips and dry it in the sun or air: Mataron una vaca y la charquearon junto al rancho.^[16][14][15]
2. (Chile, north-western Argentina, colloquial) To wound someone with many knife cuts, or to kill them.^[14][9][13]
3. (Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, rural; also pronominal) To hold on to the saddle or the horse's mane (crin) so as not to fall off.^[14][9]
4. (north-western Argentina) To criticize people or what they do.^[14]
5. (Bolivia) To fail a student in an examination.^[15]

Related words

• charqui
• charque
• charquicán
• English jerky

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. charque
3. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
4. ^ 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. charqui
5. ^ a b Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. charque
6. ^ a b c d e Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 166
7. ^ 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. carquear
8. ^ 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. charquear
9. ^ a b c d e Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 306
10. ^ a b Granada, Daniel (1890), Vocabulario rioplatense razonado, 2nd ed., Montevideo: Imprenta Rural, p. 184
11. ^ 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, 713
12. ^ Medina, José Toribio (1927), Chilenismos: apuntes lexicográficos, Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Universo, p. 30
13. ^ a b c Bayo, Ciro (1910), Vocabulario criollo-español sud-americano, Madrid: Hernando, p. 73
14. ^ a b c d e f g Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. charquear
15. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. charquear
16. ^ 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. charquear