circo

Forms

circo m (plural circos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin circus (“circle; circus”), a learned word beside the inherited doublet cerco “ring, circle; siege”, which continues the same Latin noun.^[2][3][4][1] García de Diego likewise sets the learned word against the popular outcome in Castilian and in Portuguese, Portuguese cerco.^[5] Bénaben also calls it the learned doublet of that word.^[6]

In Latin the word first meant a circle, also a circle in the sky; the sense “circle” passed to the diminutive circulus, and the Latin noun came to name the building for races.^[7][8] De Vaan considers it probably a loan from Ancient Greek κρίκος (kríkos, “ring”), also κίρκος (kírkos), a Greek word of uncertain origin; he calls the alternative, a partly reduplicated form of the root of curvus (“curved”), speculative.^[8] Wiktionary takes the Greek word back to Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Old Spanish Fuero Juzgo (13th century) uses circos for gatherings of people who meet at night to sacrifice to devils: aquellos que facen circos de noche e fazen sacrificio a los diablos “those who make circles at night and sacrifice to the devils”.^[9] The Roman sense appears about 1400 in Pero López de Ayala's translation of Livy, which lists el circo o el cómice o el campo marcial among the public places of Rome.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 still said that circo was not a Spanish word but had come in through the Mirabilia Romae and other books; for him any round enclosure was a circo, the same as cerco, and he named the three circuses of Rome.^[11] Autoridades (1729) defined it as a place ringed with tiers of seats, and also as the seats set out in a church for invited guests at a feast or a funeral.^[12] The older sense of a sorcerer's circle survived in the dictionaries as an obsolete one, and Salvá added “a gathering of evildoers”.^[13][14]

The modern circus came in during the 19th century: Gaspar y Roig describe an enclosure for equestrian exercises, the Academy added a place for gymnastic and equestrian exercises in 1869, and in 1899 a public building with tiers of seats around a circular ring.^[15][14][16] In the Americas the word also names the travelling company itself (Chile, Mexico, the River Plate), and in Puerto Rico the ring of a cockpit, a sense also known in Jaén.^{[17][18][19][20]} Today it is also a glacial cirque, a lunar crater, and colloquially a scene of confusion.^[4][21]

Timeline

• 13th century – the Fuero Juzgo uses circos for nocturnal gatherings of sorcerers.^[9]
• c. 1400 – Pero López de Ayala's translation of Livy names the Roman circo.^[10]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Latin–Spanish vocabulary describes the Roman circus, where horses were raced.^[9]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives circo donde hazian juegos for Latin circus;^[22] Corominas dates the word from here.^[22][2][3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias says the word is not Spanish but came in from the Mirabilia Romae.^[11]
• 1711 – the first record from the Americas, in Nueva Vizcaya (Mexico).^[23]
• 1729 – Autoridades records the seating sense used in churches.^[12]
• 1797 – a circo de lidear novillos, a ring for fighting young bulls, in Buenos Aires.^[23]
• 1869 – the Academy adds a place for gymnastic and equestrian exercises.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A circus: a building or big tent with tiers of seats around one or more rings where acrobats, clowns and trained animals perform.^[4][1]
2. The show given in a circus, and the company of artists, animals and equipment that put it on: Esta noche vamos al circo.^[4][24]
3. (historical) In ancient Rome, a long enclosure for chariot and horse races.^[4][1]
4. (dated) Seats set out for guests invited to a ceremony, and the people who occupy them.^[4]
5. (geology) A semicircular hollow in a mountain range surrounded by steep walls, a cirque.^[4][21]
6. A lunar crater.^[4]
7. (colloquial) Confusion, disorder, chaos: La reunión acabó siendo un circo.^[4][21]
8. (Puerto Rico) The ring of a cockpit where gamecocks fight.^[19][25]

Related words

• círculo
• cerco
• circense
• Latin circus

Usage notes

The idiom monto un circo y me crecen los enanos “I set up a circus and the dwarfs grow”, said when everything goes wrong, is listed among its derived terms by Wiktionary.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 42
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cerco
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. circo
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1659
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. circo
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ 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
9. ^ a b c 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. 697
10. ^ 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. circo
11. ^ 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. 607
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 356
13. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 248
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 175
15. ^ 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, 566
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 227
17. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 238
18. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 354
19. ^ 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. circo
20. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 670
21. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. circo
22. ^ 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. circo
23. ^ 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. circo
24. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. circo
25. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. circo