ciervo

Forms

ciervo m (plural ciervos, feminine cierva, feminine plural ciervas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish ciervo, inherited from Latin cervus (“stag, deer”); the feminine cierva continues cerva (“hind”).^[2][3][4][1] The same Latin word is Portuguese cervo, Galician cervo, Asturian ciervu, Catalan cervo, French cerf, Italian cervo, Romanian cerb and Ladino siervo.^[5][6][1] Coromines dates the Catalan word to the 13th century, and calls the variant cérvol a barbarous popular form.^[7]

The Latin noun goes back to *kerwos and *ḱer(h₂)wos “having horns”, a derivative of the word for “horn” which seems to be Italo-Celtic: its closest cognates are Welsh carw and Breton karo “stag”, beside Ancient Greek κεραός (keraós, “horned”).^[8][1] The DHLF explains the shift from “horned one” to “deer” as a taboo replacement of the old Indo-European name of the deer, *elen-.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first records are of the 13th century: the glosses of the Escorial Bible and the Calila e Dimna of about 1251.^[2][3][10] DEMel lists earlier forms in primary sources, ceruo in the Fuero de Madrid (1158–1202) and cieruo in the Libro Rubro de Iranzu (1197).^[11] In Alfonso X's Lapidario a cure calls for stones sewn en cuero de cieruo “in a deer's hide”.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its sense from Old Spanish to today: Juan Ruiz has the deer running muy lygero “very swift”.^[10] Covarrubias (1611) derived it, fancifully, from geruus, “bearing” its great antlers, and gave the deer listening to a shepherd's flute as an emblem of a simple man fooled by flatterers.^[13] Autoridades (1729) quotes Laguna's Dioscorides on the deer's poisonous green humour in the tail.^[14]

The name of the beetle ciervo volante “stag beetle”, for its antler-like jaws, is in the Academy's dictionary by 1817.^[15][4] In the Americas ciervo named the local deer from 1532, though they are more often called venados; the River Plate has ciervo de la pampa and ciervo de los pantanos.^[16][17][18]

Timeline

• 1158–1202 – ceruo in the Fuero de Madrid.^[11]
• 1197 – cieruo in the Libro Rubro de Iranzu.^[11]
• 13th century – the Escorial Bible glosses and the Calila e Dimna (c. 1251), Corominas's first records.^[2][10]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario prescribes a deer's hide.^[12]
• 1532 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico: hay muy grandes ciervos como los de España.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias offers his etymology from Latin gerere.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. cervus”.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. A deer, especially the red deer: a slender ruminant with a reddish-brown coat in summer and grey in winter, the male carrying branched antlers that it sheds every year.^[4][1]
2. A stag, the male of this animal; the female is cierva.^[4][1]

Word family

• cervato
• cervatillo
• cerval

Related words

• cérvido
• cervuno
• cuerno
• Latin cervus
• Portuguese cervo

Usage notes

The compound ciervo volante is the stag beetle, and lengua de ciervo a fern.^[4][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 71
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ciervo
4. ^ a b c d e 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. ciervo
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1850
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cervus
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. 2, 687
8. ^ 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. cervus
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. cerf
10. ^ a b c 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. 691
11. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. ciervo
12. ^ a b 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. ciervo
13. ^ 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. 597
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 347
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 200
16. ^ 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. ciervo
17. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 241
18. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. ciervo
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 241
20. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 380