corral

Forms

corral m (plural corrales)^[1]

Etymology

Its origin is uncertain.^[2][3] Corominas thinks the likeliest etymon the one Menéndez Pidal suggested, inherited from Vulgar Latin *currāle, “place where chariots are kept” or “racecourse”, derived from Latin currus (“chariot”).^[2][3] The DLE gives this etymon with a “perhaps”, and Moliner with a question mark.^[4][5] He rejects a derivation from currō (“to run”), accepted by Diez and Wartburg, because Romance does not form derivatives in -al from verb stems;^[2] García de Diego still files the word under the Latin verb for “to run”.^[6]

The word is related to corro “ring, enclosure”, and it is unclear which is derived from which.^[2][3] Corominas takes the shorter word to be a back-formation, because it is rare in the Middle Ages (once in 975, then only in the 15th century) and absent from Catalan, Occitan and Mozarabic, which do have the longer one.^[2] Alonso's dictionary instead derives the longer word from the shorter.^[7] Krüger saw the key in a pre-Roman family of the Northwest, as in Galician corre (“twisted green withe”), linked with a Celtic root meaning “circle”.^[2] Corominas doubts it, because the Celtic root had a single /r/ and the Romance words all need /rr/.^[2][3]

The word is common to Ibero-Romance and Occitan: Portuguese curral, Catalan corral (in a Catalan document of 1188), Old Occitan corral (late 12th century) and Mozarabic qurrál.^[2][8] Covarrubias had connected it with a Greek word for “grass” or with Latin chorāgium (“a large building behind the stage”), and Guadix thought it Arabic.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's earliest records are a charter of Oña of 1014, in a contemporary copy, and a Zaragoza document of 1119: illo korral cum sua torre “the corral with its tower”.^[2][3] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) the monks of Cardeña rush out into the courtyard with lights and candles to greet the Cid: Con lunbres e con candelas al corral dieron salto.^[10] The early documents use it for the lists of a judicial duel, an atrium or porch, a courtyard and an enclosure, and the Libro de Alexandre for a pigsty.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Berceo the word is a sheepfold, a courtyard, a prison and the oratory of Saint Millán.^[11] Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses it for the ring of wagons with which Attila surrounded himself and for the Roman amphitheatre, un corral grand redondo a que llamauan en latin teatro.^[12] Nebrija distinguishes the corral de gallinas from the corral as a courtyard or unroofed place,^[2][13] and a law of 1552 uses it for a fish weir.^[2][14] The Autoridades explains corral as the name of the theatres because they were open to the sky.^[14] The Academy's dictionary of 1843 recorded the corral de vecindad of Andalusia, a tenement of many poor families, and the student's gaps in dictated notes (hacer corrales).^[15]

In the Americas the word is recorded in Mexico in 1532.^[16] In Cuba a corral was a large circular cattle estate,^[17] and across Latin America the word names a child's playpen; in Puerto Rico it is also slang for the state prison and a police van.^[18] It passed into English as corral in the 1580s.^[19] Friederici takes the South African kraal to come from Portuguese curral, and rejects its frequent attribution to Hottentot.^[20]

Timeline

• 1014 – a charter of Oña, in a contemporary copy.^[2][3]
• 1119 – a Zaragoza document: illo korral cum sua torre.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses it for a monastery courtyard (in a 14th-century copy).^[10]
• 1210 – “courtyard” in documents of Santoña.^[2]
• c. 1250 – first record of the derivative acorralar, “to corner someone”.^[3]
• 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España calls the Roman theatre a corral.^[12]
• 1532 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico.^[16]
• 1552 – a law uses it for a fish weir.^[2]
• 1580s – English borrows the word.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as an enclosure behind a house without trees.^[9]
• 1843 – the Academy records the Andalusian corral de vecindad.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A yard or pen: an enclosed, open space at a house or in the country, used for keeping animals: Por la noche encierran las ovejas en el corral.^[4][1]
2. A fish weir: an enclosure made in a river or on the coast to trap fish.^[4][21]
3. (theatre, historical) A corral de comedias, an open courtyard among houses where plays were staged.^[4]
4. (geography) In the Baetic Cordillera, a cirque or amphitheatre of mountains with perpetual snow.^[4]
5. (bullfighting) In bullrings, a set of pens connected by gates, used for separating the bulls.^[4]
6. (Andalusia) A tenement house, casa de vecindad.^[4][22]
7. (Latin America) A playpen.^[4][18]
8. (Cuba, Venezuela) A plot used as a vegetable garden or for raising animals.^[4]
9. (obsolete) The main courtyard of a house.^[4]

Word family

• corralero
• corraliza
• trascorral
• acorralar

Related words

• corro
• Latin currus
• Portuguese curral
• English corral

Usage notes

Moliner records the saying antes el corral que las cabras, said of someone who prepares a secondary thing before being sure of the main one.^[5] Poultry are aves de corral.^[23]

References

1. ^ a b c Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 202
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. corral
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. corral
5. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. corral
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2049
7. ^ 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. 791
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1070
9. ^ 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. 521
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
11. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 251
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. corral
13. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 319
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 606
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 199
16. ^ 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. corral
17. ^ Pichardo, Esteban (1875), Diccionario provincial casi-razonado de vozes y frases cubanas, 4th ed., La Habana: Imprenta El Trabajo, p. 103
18. ^ 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. corral
19. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
20. ^ Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 212
21. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. corral
22. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 170
23. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. corral