coyote

Forms

coyote m (plural coyotes)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Classical Nahuatl coyōtl (“coyote”), the Nahuatl name of the animal.^[2][3][4][1] The Academy glosses the Nahuatl word as “jackal”, the Spanish word with which Molina's vocabulary of 1571 already glossed it.^[4][5] Wiktionary traces the Nahuatl noun to Proto-Nahuan *koyoo-tl.^[1] Gómez de Silva thinks it is probably of the same family as coyōnia (“to pierce”), a suggestion no other source makes.^[6]

Spanish replaced the Nahuatl ending ⟨-tl⟩ with ⟨-te⟩, as in tomate, aguacate and zapote;^[7] Henríquez Ureña notes that words of this type never went back to ⟨-tl⟩.^[7] The first Spanish texts still write the native forms ⟨coyotl⟩, ⟨coiotl⟩ and ⟨cuyotl⟩.^[8][9] Spanish passed the word on to English coyote, French coyote, German Kojote and Italian coyote.^[1][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas and Friederici date the first record to 1532, in Bernardino de Sahagún, who wrote that there is an animal in this land called coiotl, which some Spaniards call a fox and others a wolf, but which in his view is neither and belongs to this land alone.^[2][8] The sense was the American wild dog, Canis latrans, from the start.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The chroniclers kept comparing the animal with the wolf and the fox: Motolinía describes coyotes as little beasts between a wolf and a fox.^[8][11] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 calls it a kind of wolf bred in Mexico, the size of a large dog, and takes the word from Mexican coyotl, “jackal”.^[12]

In colonial Mexico coyote was also a term for a person of mixed descent, and in New Mexico it came to mean a child of an Anglo-American and Hispanic marriage or the youngest child of a family.^[4][8][13] In Puebla it named a creole, a child of a European.^[14] Salvá recorded it in 1846 as an adjective “native, of the country” (indio coyote); García Icazbalceta denied this and noted instead that around 1828, at the height of the hostility to Spaniards, coyotes was used as an insult for them.^[15][11]

From the animal's cunning came the figurative senses of Mexico and Central America: a street broker in exchange and stock deals, an unqualified pettifogger, and then anyone who handles paperwork for others for a fee.^[16][17][4] Today the word is best known for the person who guides undocumented migrants across the United States border.^[18][1] In Honduras and El Salvador it also means a middleman who buys from producers and hoards goods to resell them dear.^[19] English borrowed the word from Mexican Spanish in the 18th century.^[10]

Timeline

• 1532 – Bernardino de Sahagún describes the coiotl, the first record in the DCECH, the BDELC and Friederici.^[2][3][8]
• c. 1540 – Castañeda describes the prairie wolf without naming it.^[8]
• 1571 – Alonso de Molina's Spanish–Nahuatl vocabulary glosses coyotl as adiue “jackal”.^[5][9]
• 1575 – a Mexican text speaks of an animal they call coiutl, which is like a wolf.^[9]
• 1759 – first record of the English word coyote.^[10]
• c. 1828 – coyotes is used in Mexico as an insult for Spaniards.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary defines it, with the etymology from Mexican coyotl.^[12]
• 1942 – Santamaría records the senses “street broker” and “pettifogger” in Mexico.^[16]
• 2001 – the Academy adds the sense “paid fixer” for Ecuador, El Salvador, Honduras and Mexico.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. The coyote (Canis latrans), a carnivorous mammal of North America, like a wolf (lobo) but smaller, with yellowish-grey fur: Por la noche se oían los coyotes en el cerro.^[4][1]
2. (Mexico, Central America, Ecuador) A person who handles official paperwork for others for a fee, especially for migrants without papers; a fixer.^[4][19]
3. (Mexico, United States) A smuggler who takes migrants illegally across the border.^[18][1]
4. (Honduras, El Salvador) A middleman between producer and consumer who takes a commission or hoards goods to sell them dear.^[19]
5. (historical) In colonial America, a person born of parents of different races.^[4][1]

Word family

• coyotear
• coyotero

Related words

• Classical Nahuatl coyōtl
• English coyote

Usage notes

The feminine coyota names the female animal in El Salvador and Mexico.^[4] In Mexico coyote is also the name of a children's chase game and of a board game in which twelve “hens” try to corner the coyote.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 232
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. coyote
4. ^ 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. coyote
5. ^ a b Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. coyote
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 200
7. ^ a b Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (2015), Obras completas, vol. 12: 1936–1940 III, ed. Miguel D. Mena, Santo Domingo: Ministerio de Cultura, p. 142
8. ^ a b c d e f g Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 218
9. ^ 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. coiutl
10. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
11. ^ a b c García Icazbalceta, Joaquín (1899), Vocabulario de mexicanismos comprobado con ejemplos y comparado con los de otros países hispano-americanos, México: La Europea, p. s.v. coyote
12. ^ 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. 303
13. ^ Cobos, Rubén (1983), A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, p. 57
14. ^ Ramos y Duarte, Félix (1895), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Imprenta de Eduardo Dublán, p. 143
15. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 309
16. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 410
17. ^ Robelo, Cecilio A. (1904), Diccionario de aztequismos, o sea catálogo de las palabras del idioma náhuatl, azteca o mexicano, introducidas al idioma castellano bajo diversas formas, Cuernavaca: Imprenta del autor, p. 143
18. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. coyote
19. ^ 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. coyote
20. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. coyote