corredor

Forms

corredor m (plural corredores, feminine corredora, feminine plural corredoras)^[1] The Cantar de mio Cid also has the spelling coredor, and Aragonese documents of the 12th century write corretor.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish correr + -dor, literally “one who runs”.^[4][1][5] Corominas lists it among the derivatives of correr, which continues currō (“to run”).^[6][7]

The same formation is Portuguese corredor and Catalan corredor, and Wiktionary compares Italian corridoio (“corridor”) and the reconstructed Vulgar Latin *curritōrius and *curritor.^[1] Nascentes derives the Portuguese word in the sense “covered way”, a term of fortification, from Italian corridore.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) uses it as an adjective of a fast horse: Mandástesme mover a Bavieca el corredor “you ordered me to put Babieca the runner through his paces”.^[5][9] In the same poem the plural noun corredores names soldiers sent out on raids to take booty.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

By the 13th century the word also named a broker, a man who went round the auctions and markets arranging sales; the Partidas explain the name by their running from one place to another.^[5][10] The Libro de buen amor uses it for a broker and for a go-between in love affairs, and Alfonso X's prose has it for a talker who spreads news.^[9][11] The military sense of raiding soldiers and scouts lasted into the 16th century.^[2]

The sense of place, a passage or gallery of a house, is a later development: Corominas dates it to the early 17th century, with Cervantes and Calvete de Estrella, but DICCA-XV finds it in the 15th century and Nebrija glosses corredor de casa with Latin solarium about 1495.^[7][6][12] Records from the Canaries (1522) and Mexico City (1531) describe the galleries of cloisters and houses.^[13][14] The Academy first defined it as a synonym of pasillo in 1884, and in 1899 added the zoological sense of the large flightless birds.^[15][16] In the old cant (germanía) a corredor was the thief who arranged a theft.^[17] In Cuba and Tabasco the word means a porch or covered gallery, in Peru a route for continuous road traffic, and in Cuban baseball a player on base.^[18][19]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid calls Babieca el corredor and the raiding soldiers corredores.^[5][2]
• 1148 – a document has the Aragonese form corretor.^[3]
• 1256 – Alfonso X's Picatrix mentions a mercador corredor de bestias, a dealer in beasts.^[11]
• 1419–1426 – the first record of the sense “gallery” in the CORDE, as DICCA-XV reports it.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses corredor de mercadería with Latin proxeneta and corredor de casa with solarium.^[20][12]
• 1531 – the first record from the Americas, for stone galleries in Mexico City.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias gives the runner, the broker (corredor de lonja, corredor de oreja) and the open walk of a house.^[21]
• 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the gallery round a courtyard or garden, made for taking the sun.^[10]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the sense of flightless running birds such as the ostrich.^[16]

Meanings

Adjective

1. running, that runs fast or a lot: un caballo muy corredor.^[22][1]
2. (zoology) Of a bird: large, with short wings useless for flight and a keelless breastbone, like the ostrich and the cassowary; ratite.^[22][23]

Noun

1. runner, a person who takes part in races.^[22][1]
2. broker, an agent who buys and sells on behalf of others (corredor de comercio, corredor de seguros).^[22][1]
3. corridor, a passage inside a building (pasillo).^[22][1]
4. Each of the covered galleries round the courtyard of some houses.^[22]
5. An air route (corredor aéreo), a route that flights must follow.^[22]
6. (historical, military) A soldier sent out to scout the enemy, or one of a party raiding enemy land.^[22][23]
7. (military) A covered way in a fortification.^[22]
8. (Peru) A route for uninterrupted road traffic between distant areas.^[19]
9. (Cuba, baseball) A player who has reached a base and must get home.^[19]

Word family

• correduría

Related words

• correr
• corredera
• corredizo
• pasillo
• Italian corridoio
• Portuguese corredor

Usage notes

Corredor de fondo is a long-distance runner and corredor de bolsa a stockbroker.^[1] In Aragon the word once meant a town crier.^[24]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. corredor
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. corredor
4. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. corredor
5. ^ a b c d 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. 792
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 208
7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. correr
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. corredor
9. ^ a b c Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 145
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 608
11. ^ 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. corredor
12. ^ a b c 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. corredor
13. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. corredor
14. ^ 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. corredor
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 296
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 275
17. ^ Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. s.v. corredor
18. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 403
19. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. corredor
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 319
21. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 522
22. ^ 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. corredor
23. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. corredor
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 245