cillero

Forms

cillero m (plural cilleros)^[1] Old Spanish wrote cillero, cellero, çillero and çellero; the Aragonese Vidal Mayor has ceillero.^[2][3] Asturian has cellero and ceyero; at Lena cetsero is a large room.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish cellero, inherited from Latin cellārium (“storeroom, pantry”).^[5][1][6] The DLE derives it from cellārius (“storekeeper”) instead.^[7] García de Diego takes the storeroom from the first Latin word and the storekeeper from the second, and puts the ⟨i⟩ down to the influence of the word for the granary.^[4] Corominas counts it among the popular words related to Old Spanish ciella, later cilla, the inherited form of the Latin word that Spanish later borrowed as celda.^[5]

The same Latin word is Portuguese celeiro, Galician celeiro, Asturian celleru, Catalan celler, French cellier and Italian cellaio, and German Keller (“cellar”).^[6][4][5]

The noun is formed from Latin cella (“storeroom, granary”) + -ārium.^[1] For its base de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *kēlā- and tentatively links it to Proto-Indo-European *ḱēl- (“hiding”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest CDH hit is in La Fazienda de Ultra Mar, of about 1200 in a 13th-century copy, where King Ben-Hadad of Syria flees into the city de cellero en cellero “from chamber to chamber”.^[3] A charter of 1231 from the abbey of Irache already uses it for a storeroom kept back by the abbot: retenemos para nos el cellero.^[3] Alonso records the sense “room, house” in the Libro de Alexandre.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In Berceo and in Alfonso X's prose it is a storeroom where things are kept safe, and figuratively a store, as when the earth is called cillero de vida.^[3][10] Nebrija gave it the senses “storeroom”, “the man who keeps it” and “fruit store”.^[11][12] The Diccionario de Autoridades of 1729 defined it first as the officer who kept the tithe grain in the cilla and accounted for it, then as a granary.^[13] From 1817 the Academy marked the sense “cellar, pantry” as old.^[14] In 1869 it began to define the tithe officer in the past tense.^[15] Today the DLE gives the storeroom first.^[7] In Leonese and Asturian it is also a granary, a poor bedroom and the box fitted between the shafts of a cart.^[16][17]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – La Fazienda de Ultra Mar (13th-century copy), spelt cellero.^[3]
• 1231 – a charter of the abbey of Irache.^[3]
• c. 1236–1246 – Berceo writes cellero.^[3][5]
• c. 1250 – the Aragonese Vidal Mayor has ceillero.^[3]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin cellarium and cellarius.^[11]
• 1575 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico.^[18]
• 1729 – Autoridades defines the officer of the tithes.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bodega, pantry (despensa) or other safe place for keeping things: Guardaban el aceite en el cillero.^[7][1]
2. (historical) The man in charge of keeping the tithe grain and produce in the granary, accounting for it and handing it to those entitled.^[7][13]
3. The cilla itself, the house or room where the grain was gathered.^[7]

Word family

• cillerero
• cillerizo

Related words

• cilla
• celda
• Latin cellārium
• Portuguese celeiro
• Catalan celler

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cillero
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cillero
4. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cillero
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 19
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. cellārium
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. cillero
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ 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. 692
10. ^ 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. cillero
11. ^ a b 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. cillero
12. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 325
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 201
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 174
16. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. cillero
17. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. celleru
18. ^ 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. cillero