cobijo

Forms

cobijo m (plural cobijos)^[1]

Etymology

Corominas treats it as a noun formed from the verb, a deverbal noun from Spanish cobijar (“to shelter”), and dates it from the Academy's dictionary of 1884, without known quotations.^[2][3] The noun is in fact already in Gaspar y Roig's dictionary (1853–1855) and in the Academy's of 1869.^[4][5]

The verb, recorded from about 1400 in the sense “to cover”, is of uncertain origin.^[2][3] Corominas derives it from cobija “bed covering” (mid-16th century, still Andalusian and American), and this from the plural Latin cubīlia (“bed, couch, lair”), which classical Latin used with a collective or singular meaning; the step from “bed” to “bedclothes” would have been helped by cubierta “blanket”.^[2][3] The Latin noun is formed from cubō (“to lie down”).^[6][1]

Américo Castro, followed by García de Diego and the REW, derived the word instead from cubiculum (“bedroom”), through a sense “lodging”; this is the etymology of the DLE and Wiktionary, which makes cubículo a learned doublet.^[2][7][1][8] Corominas objects that the sense “lodging where the innkeeper gives no food”, the starting point of that explanation, is recorded only very late, and that the first step is harder.^[2] Its strongest support is the old word Old Spanish covijera (“chambermaid”), which matches cubicularia, but he takes this word too as a derivative of the Latin plural in the classical sense “bedroom”.^[2] He also rejects Diez's cooperculum (“lid”), which fails on the sound changes.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Gaspar y Roig (1853–1855) defines cobijo as cobijamiento “sheltering” and as a lodging that consists of the house alone.^[4] The Academy's dictionary of 1869 has the same two senses: cobijamiento and a lodging where the innkeeper provides only the room.^[5]

Semantic evolution

The verb cobijar first meant “to cover”, especially with bedclothes.^[3][2] From 1490 it also meant “to shelter in a building”.^[3] The noun's 19th-century sense of a lodging without meals is now rare or obsolete, and the dictionaries of today give first “a place of shelter” and “protection, refuge”.^[7][9][10] In 1935 a Venezuelan writer uses al cobijo de “under the shelter of”, and a Chilean text of 1967 has cubijos for blankets.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – the verb cobijar is first recorded, in the Toledo glossary and the Cancionero de Baena.^[2]
• 1490 – cobijar “to shelter in a building” is recorded.^[3]
• 1853–1855 – Gaspar y Roig's dictionary records the noun cobijo.^[4]
• 1869 – the Academy's dictionary has it as a synonym of cobijamiento and for a lodging that gives only shelter.^[5]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology Latin cubiculum;^[12] Corominas dates the word from this edition.^[12][3]
• 1935 – the phrase al cobijo de is recorded in Venezuela.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A shelter, a place where someone or something takes cover: Buscaron cobijo bajo un puente.^[7][1][9]
2. protection, amparo, refuge.^[7][1][13]
3. (rare, dated) A lodging where the innkeeper gave no meals.^[7][9]

Related words

• cobija
• cobijar
• cubículo
• cobijamiento

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 105
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cobijar
4. ^ a b c 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
5. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
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. cobijo
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
9. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
10. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. cobijo
11. ^ 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
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial