cigarra

Forms

cigarra f (plural cigarras)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote çigarra;^[2] Alfonso de Palencia once has cigara, a form not confirmed elsewhere.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *cicāra, a variant of Latin cicāda (“cicada”).^[3][4][1] Corominas supports that variant with the form Ancient Greek ζειγαρά (zeigará), which Hesychius gives as the word of the people of Side, in southern Asia Minor.^[3][5] The Vulgar Latin form would then have taken its ⟨rr⟩ from the common suffix -arra.^[3][5] The DLE starts instead from cicāla, the variant found in Latin glosses, with onomatopoeic influence.^[6]

From that form come Catalan cigala, Occitan cigala, Italian cicala, and Mozarabic and Old Aragonese forms of the same shape.^[3][7][8] The word French cigale was taken from Occitan, while Portuguese cigarra has the same form as Spanish.^[3][7][8] The Latin word is probably onomatopoeic, formed with reduplication like cicōnia (“stork”), and may be a loan from a Mediterranean language.^[9][1]

The variant chicharra, recorded from 1580, is a Mozarabic form of Andalusia and Toledo, an alteration of an older form recorded in 1495.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in a 15th-century copy), in a list of birds and singing creatures: qüando la çigarra non quiero olvidar “nor do I want to forget the cicada”.^[10][11] The Aragonese manuscript P has cigala instead.^[3] The first record in a text without a later copy is the Libro de los azores (c. 1300), which prescribes a powdered cicada for a sick hawk.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Juan del Encina's poems have cicadas singing among the vines, and a text from Peru of 1540 has canta la cigarra en verano “the cicada sings in summer”.^[10][12] Covarrubias (1611) describes an insect of the hills that sings in summer, explains Latin cicada fancifully as quasi citocadens “quickly vanishing”, and reports from Laguna's Dioscorides that roasted cicadas eased pains of the bladder.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades adds that only the males sing.^[14]

In the thieves' cant germanía a cigarra was a purse, recorded by Hidalgo in 1609 and still in the DLE.^[15][6] In the Canary Islands the word names the migratory locust that reaches the islands from Africa, recorded from 1569.^[16][17] The cigarrales of Toledo, country houses with orchards, are named after the cicadas, recorded from 1599.^[4]

Timeline

• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre (in a 15th-century copy): first record, çigarra.^[10][11]
• c. 1300 – the Libro de los azores uses the insect as a medicine for hawks.^[10]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin dictionary glosses cicada as la cigarra o chicharro.^[18]
• 1540 – first record in the Americas, from Peru.^[12]
• 1569 – the Canarian sense “locust” is recorded, in the form çigarron.^[16]
• 1580 – the variant chicharra is recorded.^[4]
• 1599 – cigarral “country house in Toledo” is recorded.^[4]
• 1609 – Hidalgo records cigarra “purse” in thieves' cant.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the insect and its uses in medicine.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin cicada.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cicada: a hemipterous insect about four centimetres long, whose males make a loud, monotonous shrill sound in hot weather: En agosto no paran de cantar las cigarras.^[6][1]
2. (Canary Islands) A migratory locust.^[17][1]
3. An electric buzzer.^[20]
4. (thieves' cant) A purse for money.^[6][15]

Word family

• cigarral

Related words

• cigala
• cigarro
• chicharra
• Portuguese cigarra

Usage notes

Cigarra de mar is a Mediterranean crustacean resembling the spiny lobster.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. cigarra
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 72
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cigarra
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cigarra
6. ^ 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. cigarra
7. ^ a b 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, 694
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. cicada
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ 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. cigarra
11. ^ 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. 691
12. ^ 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. chigarra
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. 599
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. cigarra
15. ^ a b c Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. s.v. cigarra
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. cigarra
17. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. cigarra
18. ^ 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. cigarra
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. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cigarra