Etymologically
Log in

cintura

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the Spanish word cintura

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1140 Cantar de mio Cid More words from the 12th century
Inherited from
Latin cinctura
Ultimate origin
Latin cingō
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin cingō
Italian cingere
Romanian cinge
Spanish ceñir
Latin cīnctus
Latin cīnctūra
French ceinture
Italian cintura
Spanish cintura
From the same root
Latin accingō ← cingō
Latin cingulum ← cingō
Latin discingō ← cingō
Latin incingō ← cingō
Latin praecingō ← cingō
Latin procinctus ← cingō
Latin recingo ← cingō
Latin succingō ← cingō
Romanian încinge ← cingō

Pronunciation

  • /θinˈtuɾa/, [θĩn̪ˈt̪u.ɾa], /sinˈtuɾa/[1]

Forms

cintura f (plural cinturas)[1] Old Spanish spelled it çintura, and also çentura or centura.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cinctūra (“girdle, belt”).[4][5][6][1] The Latin noun, a rare word, is formed from cinctus (“girding; belt”) with the suffix -ūra, and so belongs to cingō (“to gird, surround”).[7][6][8] In Medieval Latin it meant a belt.[9]

The same Latin word is Portuguese cintura, Asturian centura, Catalan cintura, French ceinture and Italian cintura.[10][4][1] It is a cognate of the English word cincture.[1]

The origin of the Latin verb is uncertain.[11][1] A Proto-Italic form *keng- may be shown by an Umbrian word for certain officials, “girded”, but comparisons with Lithuanian and Sanskrit words for harnessing and binding have phonetic problems.[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) already has the sense “waist”: cortól' por la cintura, el medio echó en campo “he cut him through the waist and threw half of him on the field”.[3][12][4]

Semantic evolution

In the Razón de amor (first half of the 13th century) a woman is praised for her slender çentura.[3] Alfonso X used the word both for the waist and for a band or girdle that ties and adorns.[13] Autoridades described the second sense as a girdle with a buckle worn by ladies to make the waist look more graceful, sometimes embroidered or set with stones; by 1817 the Academy marked it as obsolete.[14][15]

The phrase meter en cintura meant “to put someone in a tight spot” in 1817; from 1884 the Academy defined it as “to make someone see reason”.[15][16] Gaspar y Roig added a sense in architecture, the top of a chimney hood where the flue begins, and one at sea, a lashing of rigging to a mast.[17] Anatomy uses the word for the bones that join the limbs to the spine, as in cintura pélvica.[18] In Argentina tener cintura means to be good at getting out of difficult situations.[19]

Timeline

  • c. 1140 – cintura “waist” in the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy).[3][5]
  • c. 1205–1250 – çentura in the Razón de amor.[3]
  • 1272–1275 – the General Estoria uses it for the waist and for a girdle.[13]
  • 1330–1335 – used by Juan Manuel in the Conde Lucanor.[12]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin cinctura and cinctus.[20]
  • 1532 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico.[21]
  • 1705 – first record of the derivative cinturón.[5]
  • 1817 – the Academy records meter en cintura.[15]
  • 1853–1855 – Gaspar y Roig adds the senses in architecture and seafaring.[17]
  • 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin cinctura.[16]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The waist: the narrowest part of the human trunk, above the hips: Llevaba un pañuelo atado a la cintura.[6][1]
  2. The waist of a garment.[6][22]
  3. (historical) A band or girdle with which ladies tightened the waist to make it slimmer.[6]
  4. A narrowing about halfway along an object.[6][22]
  5. Skill at reacting to difficult situations.[6][19]
  6. (anatomy) The set of bones joining the limbs to the spine; a girdle.[6][18]
  7. (architecture) The top of a chimney hood, where the flue begins.[6]
  8. (nautical) A lashing of the rigging to its mast.[6]

Word family

  • cinturón

Usage notes

Meter a alguien en cintura means to make someone behave properly.[6][22] Cintura de avispa “wasp waist” is a very slender waist.[22]

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. cintura
  3. ^ 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. cintura
  4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 87
  5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cinta
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. cintura
  7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. ceinture
  9. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1637
  11. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  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. ^ 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. cintura
  14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 355
  15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 202
  16. ^ 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. 244
  17. ^ a b Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 565
  18. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. cintura
  19. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cintura
  20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 325
  21. ^ 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. centura
  22. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cintura

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Cintura.” Etymologically, 13 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/cintura. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·