coliflor

Forms

coliflor f (plural coliflores)^[1]

Etymology

Corominas takes it from a dialect form borrowed from Italian caolifior, beside standard cavolfiore, a compound of cavolo (“cabbage”) and fiore (“flower”).^[2] Gómez de Silva also derives it, probably, from Italian, from the plural caoli fiori.^[3] Prat Sabater counts it among the words for which Catalan is proposed as the immediate source, and among those that came into Catalan from Occitan.^[4][5] The Academy and Wiktionary analyse it as a Spanish compound of col and flor, and compare French chou-fleur.^[6][1]

The DELI records the Italian name in the spelling with a space before 1597 (Soderini) and in the solid spelling before 1698 (Redi).^[7] The Italian word for “cabbage” continues Late Latin caulus, a variant of caulis (“stalk; cabbage”), with the diphthong /au/ kept as in the southern dialects.^[8] Latin had the word from or beside Ancient Greek καυλός (kaulós, “stalk”).^[8][7] The Spanish word for “cabbage” is the inherited outcome of the same Latin word, first recorded in 1219.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is in Gabriel del Corral's La Cintia de Aranjuez (1629), in a playful passage where los coliflores are “opening” little by little, with the masculine gender.^[9] Corominas dates the word 1765–83.^[2] Ramón de la Cruz has a street cry of ¡Coliflores y apios! “cauliflowers and celery!” in La Plaza Mayor (1765).^[9]

Semantic evolution

The Academy's dictionary of 1817 defined it as a kind of cabbage whose head of small white clusters is eaten cooked, with the Latin name Brassica cauliflora.^[10] The 1899 edition was the first to give the etymology, from col and flor.^[11]

In parts of the Americas it is also masculine, el coliflor.^[6][12] The DAMER records slang senses: a homosexual man in Chile, the buttocks in Guatemala, and a breast-pocket handkerchief in Cuba.^[13]

Timeline

• 1629 – first record, in Gabriel del Corral's La Cintia de Aranjuez, as a masculine plural.^[9]
• c. 1754 – Juan José Delgado's history of the Philippines mentions salads of coliflores.^[9]
• 1765 – Ramón de la Cruz, La Plaza Mayor.^[9]
• 1765–1783 – the date Corominas gives for the word.^[2]
• 1794 – first record from the Americas, in Lima.^[14]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary defines it.^[10]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the etymology col + flor.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. cauliflower: a variety of col (Brassica oleracea) grown for its compact white head of fleshy flower buds, eaten as a vegetable.^[6][15][1]
2. (Chile, colloquial, derogatory) A homosexual man.^[13]
3. (Guatemala, colloquial) The buttocks.^[13]
4. (Cuba) A handkerchief worn in the breast pocket of a jacket.^[13]

Related words

• col
• flor
• Italian cavolfiore
• French chou-fleur
• English cauliflower

Usage notes

Coliflor is feminine in Spain; in some parts of the Americas it is also used as a masculine noun.^[6][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. col
3. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 179
4. ^ Prat Sabater, Marta (2003), Préstamos del catalán en el léxico español, doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, p. 85
5. ^ Prat Sabater, Marta (2003), Préstamos del catalán en el léxico español, doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, p. 88
6. ^ a b c d 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. coliflor
7. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. cavolo
8. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. cavolo
9. ^ 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. coliflor
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía
12. ^ Cobos, Rubén (1983), A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press
13. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. coliflor
14. ^ 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. coliflor
15. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial