Etymologically
Log in

cigarro

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the Spanish word cigarro

Confidence
Disputed
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 1610 a romance by Mateo Rosas de Oquendo More words from the 17th century
Ultimate origin
Spanish cigarra
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Spanish cigarro
English cigar
French cigare
From the same root
French cigarette ← cigarro

Pronunciation

  • /θiˈɡaro/, [θiˈɣ̞a.ro], /siˈɡaro/[1]

Forms

cigarro m (plural cigarros)[1]

Etymology

The origin is uncertain.[2][3][1] Corominas thinks it may be from Spanish cigarra (“cicada”), from a comparison with the insect's dark, cylindrical body, which tapers to a point like a cigar; he notes that French of the Antilles called a cigar French cigale (“cicada”) as early as 1724.[2][3][4] The Academy gave this explanation from 1884 to 1899.[5][6] Wiktionary adds that the same spelling, meaning “male cicada”, occurs in some older texts, particularly from southern Spain.[1]

The Academy now derives it from Yucatec Maya siyar.[7][8] Friederici, citing the Yucatec forms zicar and zigar, considers this the most likely solution.[9] Gómez de Silva suggests a Maya verb “to smoke”, from the word for “tobacco”.[10] Corominas rejects it: the Maya word is a verb meaning “to perfume, to smoke”, a noun is unlikely to come from a verb, and the Spanish word appears only after the habit of smoking had reached Europe, so it need not have been coined in America at all.[2] Wiktionary leaves both explanations open.[1]

From Spanish the word passed into French cigare, first as cigarro in 1688, Italian sigaro and English cigar.[2][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest known record is in a romance by Mateo Rosas de Oquendo, full of allusions to Mexico, of about 1610: „hasiendo un zigarro, chupólo y durmióse” “rolling a cigar, he puffed it and fell asleep”.[2][3] Before Corominas found it the earliest examples were from 1680.[2][9] The chroniclers of the 16th century, Las Casas among them, still called the Indians' rolls of tobacco mosquetes or “tubes of smoke”.[2]

Semantic evolution

The first records come from the Spanish colonies: the Philippines in the early 17th century, and Peru in 1639, where a writer explains that cigarros is the name for the papers in which tobacco is rolled.[12][13] Autoridades defined the cigar as a tube of tobacco leaves moistened with wine and rolled one over another.[14] From 1817 the Academy's dictionary included rolls of cut tobacco wrapped in paper or in maize husk.[15] In 1869 it explained that the first kind was called puro or tabaco, the paper one cigarrillo and the maize-husk one pajilla or tusa.[16]

The DLE now gives both “cigar” and “cigarette”.[7] In much of Spanish America, and in the Canaries, cigarro alone means the cigarette, while the cigar is a puro (Guatemala, Costa Rica) or a tabaco (Cuba).[17][18][19][20] In Ecuador it is also a name for the dragonfly.[21][22]

Timeline

  • c. 1610 – Mateo Rosas de Oquendo writes zigarro in a romance about Mexico.[2][3]
  • 1611–1650 – a book of household remedies from the Philippines recommends ground clove smoked en cigarros for asthma.[12]
  • 1639 – first record in the Boyd-Bowman corpus, from Peru.[13]
  • 1680 – the earliest record known to Friederici.[9]
  • 1688 – French borrows the word, first as cigarro.[2]
  • 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades describes how the cigar is made.[14]
  • 1730 – English cigar is first recorded, according to Etymonline;[11] Corominas dates it 1735.[11][2]
  • 1832 – first record of the derivative cigarrero.[3]
  • 1884 – the Academy derives the word from cigarra.[5]
  • 2001 – the Academy derives it from Maya siyar.[8]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A cigar: a roll of tabaco leaves lit at one end and smoked from the other: Se fumó un cigarro después de la cena.[7][1]
  2. A cigarette, the same as cigarrillo.[7][1]
  3. (Ecuador) A dragonfly.[22][21]

Word family

  • cigarrero
  • cigarrillo
  • cigarrería
  • cigarrera

Usage notes

Cigarro puro or simply puro is the cigar, cigarro de papel the cigarette.[7] In Argentina a cigarette rolled in maize husk is a cigarro de chala; in Mexico it is a cigarro de hoja.[23]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 74
  3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cigarro
  4. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cigarro
  5. ^ 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. 241
  6. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 224
  7. ^ 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. cigarro
  8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. cigarro
  9. ^ a b c Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 190
  10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. cigarro
  11. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cigarro
  13. ^ 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. cigarro
  14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 348
  15. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 200
  16. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 174
  17. ^ Batres Jáuregui, Antonio (1892), Vicios del lenguaje y provincialismos de Guatemala, Guatemala: Encuadernación y Tipografía Nacional, p. 172
  18. ^ Gagini, Carlos (1893), Diccionario de barbarismos y provincialismos de Costa Rica, San José: Tipografía Nacional, p. 134
  19. ^ Suárez, Constantino (1921), Vocabulario cubano, La Habana: Librería Cervantes / Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Compañía, p. 133
  20. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. cigarro
  21. ^ a b Tobar, Carlos R. (1907), Consultas al Diccionario de la lengua, 2nd ed., Barcelona: Imprenta de la Revista Ibérica, p. 106
  22. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cigarro
  23. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 350

Borrowed into

Descendants

Cite this entry

“Cigarro.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/cigarro. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·