costado

Forms

costado m (plural costados)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin costātus (“having ribs”), used as a noun in the neuter, *costātum.^[2][1][3][4] The Latin adjective is formed on costa (“rib; side”).^[5][6] The same word is French côté, Catalan costat, Occitan costat, Italian costato, Portuguese costado, Galician costado and Asturian costáu.^[1][7]

The Latin noun has been compared with Old Church Slavonic кость (kostĭ, “bone”).^[8][1] Derksen thinks the kinship quite possible, but de Vaan rejects it, because the Slavic word goes back to a form that could not give the Latin one, and treats the Latin noun as an isolated word without etymology.^[8][1] Its own popular outcome is cuesta, which first meant “back” and then “slope”.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) tells how Longinus struck Christ: diot' con la lança en el costado, dont ixió la sangre “he struck you in the side with the lance, whence the blood came out”.^[10][11][12] The first record in a text without a later copy is the Poridat de poridades (c. 1250).^[10]

Semantic evolution

Berceo uses the word for the side of the body and also for the back: sé que los mis costados sobarán la correa “I know the strap will beat my back”.^[10][13] In Alfonso X's prose it is the side of the body, a side of anything, a rib, and in geometry each of the lines that form an angle.^[14] Nebrija renders it with Latin latus and pleura, and dolor de costado with pleuresis.^[15][16]

The Diccionario de Autoridades adds the flanks of an army and the sides of a ship.^[17] The plural for the four grandparents' lines appears in the Americas in 1547, in a man limpio de todos quatro costados “of pure descent on all four sides”, and the Academy recorded the phrase noble de todos cuatro costados in 1884.^[18][19] In Mexico costado was a railway platform, and in rural Bolivia and north-western Argentina it means pneumonia, a sense Asturian costáu shares.^{[20][21][22][7]}

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy): first record, Christ's side pierced by the lance.^[10][3]
• 1228–1246 – Berceo uses it for the side of Christ and for the back.^[10]
• c. 1250 – the Poridat de poridades, the first record in a text without a later copy.^[10]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for a side of a figure.^[14]
• c. 1400 – a Latin–Spanish glossary renders Latin armus with costado.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin latus and pleura.^[15]
• 1532 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico, of the side of a mountain range.^[18]
• 1547 – limpios de todos quatro costados, of a person's ancestry.^[18]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the flanks of an army and the sides of a ship.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary records the genealogical plural.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. Each of the two sides of the human body between the chest, the back and the armpits; the side or flank: Le dolía el costado derecho.^[2][1]
2. The right or left wing of an army.^[2][1]
3. A side of anything: lado.^[2][23]
4. (nautical) Each of the two sides of a ship's hull, especially above the waterline.^[2]
5. (obsolete) The back.^[2][1]
6. (in the plural) In genealogy, the lines of a person's paternal and maternal grandparents.^[2][1]
7. (Bolivia, Argentina, rural) Pneumonia.^[22]

Related words

• cuesta
• costilla
• costa
• costal
• acostar

Usage notes

Por los cuatro costados means “through and through, on every side”, and dar el costado is said of a ship that turns its whole side to the enemy for a broadside, or heels over to be careened.^[2] De costado is “sideways”, and al costado “at one's side”.^[23][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. costado
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. costado
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. costado
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. costado
7. ^ a b Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. costáu
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 278
10. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. costado
11. ^ a b 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. 802
12. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. costado
13. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. s.v. costado
14. ^ 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. costado
15. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 320
16. ^ 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. costado
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 640
18. ^ a b c 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. costado
19. ^ 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. 302
20. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 467
21. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 305
22. ^ 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. costado
23. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. costado