cornudo

Forms

cornudo (feminine cornuda, masculine plural cornudos, feminine plural cornudas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cornūtus (“horned”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin adjective is formed from cornū (“horn”) with the suffix -ūtus.^[5][1] The learned doublet is cornuto, used of a syllogism that poses a dilemma.^[2]

The same Latin word is Portuguese cornudo, Asturian cornudu, Catalan cornut, Old Occitan cornut, French cornu, Italian cornuto and Romanian cornut.^[6][7][8] Latin already used the masculine and feminine as nouns for an ox and a horned animal, and the feminine was the name of a sea creature, as the feminine names the hammerhead shark in Catalan, Spanish and Portuguese.^[5][7]

Wiktionary notes that the link between having horns and being deceived by one's partner is found in all the Romance languages and beyond, and that its origin is disputed.^[1] Houaiss calls the Portuguese sense old and hard to explain.^[9] In 1611 Covarrubias reported the view of some that the word stood for a Latin phrase meaning “bare of heart”.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to the Fuero de Guadalajara of 1219.^[2][3] DEMel lists an earlier record in the Fuero de Madrid (1158–1202).^[11] Alfonso X's General estoria (1272–1275) uses it in the literal sense: Moses' face shone so that people said he had a faz cornuda, a horned face.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In medieval texts the adjective is still mostly literal: Juan Ruiz has a cabrón cornudo “horned billy goat”, and a book of exempla of 1400–1421 mentions horned snakes.^[13][14] The sense “cuckold” appears in the Coplas del Provincial (1465–1474), which ask ¿ser cornudo o alcahuete?.^[14] Nebrija gives it only as an insult, with the Latin curruca, and Percyvall translates it “a cuckold”.^[15][16]

Covarrubias and Autoridades record the proverb el cornudo es el postrero que lo sabe “the cuckold is the last to know”, and Autoridades quotes a law that punishes calling someone cornudo.^[10][17] The Academy added in 1817 the proverb tras cornudo apaleado, y mándanle bailar for adding insult to injury.^[18] In the Americas the feminine names the hammerhead shark in Colombia and Cuba, and in Honduras the masculine was a name for the capuchin monkey.^[4][19]

Timeline

• 1219 – first record, in the Fuero de Guadalajara.^[2]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General estoria calls Moses' shining face cornuda.^[12]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz writes of a horned billy goat.^[13]
• 1465–1474 – the Coplas del Provincial use it for a deceived husband.^[14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija lists it as an insult.^[15]
• 1539 – first record from the Americas, in New Granada.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records el cornudo es el postrero que lo sabe.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology cornutus.^[21]

Meanings

Adjective

1. horned: having horns.^[4][1]
2. (colloquial) Of a person, especially a husband: cuckolded, deceived by one's partner.^[4][1]

Noun

1. (colloquial) A cuckold: Todo el pueblo sabía que era un cornudo.^[4][1]
2. (feminine, Colombia, Cuba) The hammerhead shark.^[4]

Related words

• cuerno
• cornuto
• cornúpeta
• Latin cornūtus

Usage notes

The proverbs el cornudo es el último que lo sabe and tras cornudo, apaleado are still recorded.^[21][22] Moliner lists cabrón, consentido and cornúpeta among its colloquial synonyms.^[22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 273
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cuerno
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. cornudo
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cornutus
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. cornutus
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 173
9. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cornudo
10. ^ 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. 517
11. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cornudo
12. ^ 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. cornudo
13. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 145
14. ^ 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. 789
15. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 318
16. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 98
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 600
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 243
19. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 399
20. ^ 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. cornudo
21. ^ 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. 294
22. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cornudo