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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word cinta

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1012 a charter in Oelschläger's list More words from the 11th century
Inherited from
Latin cincta
Ultimate origin
Latin cingo

Pronunciation

  • /ˈθinta/, [ˈθĩn̪.t̪a], /ˈsinta/[1]

Forms

cinta f (plural cintas)[1] Old Spanish texts write it cinta and çinta, and once çita.[2] An Aragonese inventory of 1374 has the spelling sinta: una sinta de spada guarnida d'argent “a sword belt trimmed with silver”.[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cincta, the feminine of the past participle of cingō (“to gird, surround”).[3][4][5] Wiktionary instead takes it from the Late Latin plural of cinctum, a variant of cinctus (“a girding, girdle”).[1] In Old Spanish the participle was still used as such, “girded”: the Cid and Berceo have it.[3][6] Medieval Latin used the same form as a noun for a belt.[7]

The same Latin word is Portuguese cinta and Catalan cinta, both “belt, waist; ribbon”, and Italian cinta “ring of walls round a town”.[8][9][10] The Latin verb has no certain cognates outside Italic: a link with *kenk- has been proposed but meets phonetic difficulties.[1]

cinto and cintura are separate words of the same root: the first continues the Latin noun meaning a girding, the second cinctūra.[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the noun to a charter of 1012 in Oelschläger's list, and finds it also in Berceo.[3] In the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) Tamar asks Judah for la cinta que cinnya “the belt he was wearing” as a pledge.[6] Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for the belt one girds oneself with every day.[11]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish cinta was a belt or girdle, and also the waist itself: Berceo writes of a figure la cinta mui delgada “very slim at the waist”.[11][12][13] Alfonso X's General estoria even uses it for a zone of the sky, rendering Latin zona.[11] The sense “woven strip of silk or thread for tying or adorning” appears in the 15th century, in Alonso de Palencia and Nebrija.[12][14]

Covarrubias (1611) explains the phrase estar en cinta “to be pregnant” as “having the child girded”.[15] Cervantes still wrote it in two words, and the Academy later called the two-word spelling improper beside the adjective encinta.[15][16][17] By the 19th century the Academy marked “waist”, “belt” and “strap” as old senses.[18][19]

Any long flexible strip came to be called cinta: in 1917 Alemany recorded the surveyor's tape measure and the cinema film, and today it also names magnetic tape, cassettes and conveyor belts.[20][5] In Mexico, Nicaragua and Cuba a cinta is also a grade in the martial arts, shown by the colour of the belt.[21]

Timeline

  • 1012 – first record of the noun, in a charter of Oelschläger's list.[3][4]
  • c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses cinta as a participle, “girded”: cintas las espadas.[6][3]
  • c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has the noun for a belt (in a 13th-century copy).[6]
  • 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for a belt; his Judizios de las estrellas (1254) for the waist.[11]
  • 1374 – an Aragonese inventory writes sinta for a sword belt.[3]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin cingulum as its equivalent.[14]
  • 1513 – first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico: cintas de hilo “ribbons of thread”.[22]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias explains estar en cinta “to be pregnant”.[15]
  • 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as a long woven strip of silk or thread, and as the waist.[23]
  • 1917 – Alemany records the senses “film” and “tape measure”.[20]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A ribbon or tape: a strip of cloth or similar material used for tying, binding or decoration: Se recogió el pelo con una cinta verde.[5][24][1]
  2. A strip of paper, celluloid, plastic or another flexible material; adhesive tape in cinta adhesiva.[5][1]
  3. A tape measure (cinta métrica).[5][24]
  4. An inked ribbon for a typewriter.[5]
  5. A film, a motion picture: Vimos una cinta muda de los años veinte.[5][24][1]
  6. A magnetic tape; a cassette (casete).[5]
  7. A conveyor belt (cinta transportadora); a treadmill (cinta de correr).[5][1]
  8. A strong hemp net for catching tuna.[5][18]
  9. An ornamental grass with leaves striped white and green (Phalaris arundinacea).[5][24]
  10. (architecture) A fillet in a moulding; an ornament like a ribbon folded in various shapes.[5]
  11. (construction) A row of floor tiles laid along the walls.[5]
  12. (sports) In rhythmic gymnastics, a long ribbon fixed to a short stick.[5]
  13. (Mexico, Nicaragua, Cuba) A belt grade in the martial arts.[21]

Word family

  • cintarazo
  • portacintas
  • videocinta
  • encintar
  • cintajo

Usage notes

The adjective encinta “pregnant” began as the phrase en cinta; the Academy's 1869 dictionary already called the two-word spelling improper.[17][3]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. cinta
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 87
  4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cinta
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. cinta
  6. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cinta
  7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 843
  9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. cinta
  10. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
  11. ^ a b c d 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. cinta
  12. ^ 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. 696
  13. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 120
  14. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 325
  15. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 604
  16. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 276
  17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 175
  18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 202
  19. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 164
  20. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 385
  21. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. cinta
  22. ^ 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. cinta
  23. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 354
  24. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cinta

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Cinta.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/cinta. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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