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criba

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word criba

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1234 Colección diplomática de Teobaldo I, spelt criua More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin criba
Ultimate origin
Latin crībrum

Pronunciation

  • /ˈkɾiba/, [ˈkɾi.β̞a][1]

Forms

criba f (plural cribas)[1] Old Spanish texts mostly write criua;[2] Aragonese inventories of 1379 and 1397 have griva, and the verb appears as agrivar in 1373.[3][2] The DEEH lists griba for Aragonese, beside the masculine gribo of Navarre and Aragon.[4]

Etymology

Wiktionary takes it as inherited from Late Latin crība, the plural of crībum, a form found in some late glosses, from Latin crībrum (“sieve”).[1] The DLE and Corominas instead treat it as the feminine counterpart of cribo, the masculine noun that continues the same Latin word, and Corominas notes that it has no Romance relative besides Portuguese criva.[5][3][6]

This dissimilated form without the second /r/, beside the masculine cribus, is attested in glosses in manuscripts of the 8th and 10th centuries, and also gave Portuguese crivo and Sicilian crivu, which is also southern Italian.[3][3][7] Other Romance languages continue other altered forms: Romanian ciur goes back to *cibrum, and French crible to Late Latin criblum.[7][8]

The Latin noun is formed from the root of cernō (“to sift, separate”) with the instrument suffix -brum.[9][1] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *kreiþro- and Proto-Indo-European *krei-dhro- (“sieve”), with cognates in Old Irish críathar and Old English hrīdder.[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEMel's earliest records are the form criua in documents of about 1234: those of the reconquest of the Ebro valley, and the charters of Teobaldo I.[2] The Fuero de Ledesma (before 1252) names the criua in a list of household goods: e arca, e badil, e criua, e cadera.[11] Corominas dates the form criba itself to Alfonso de Palencia's dictionary of 1490, and the masculine cribo to about 1400.[3][6]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 described the criba as the sieve for cleaning straw, with larger holes than the cribo or the harnero; he also gave the phrase acribar a uno, “to stab someone many times”.[12] Autoridades (1729) recorded the comparison estar como una criba for something full of holes, which the DLE keeps as a colloquial phrase.[13][5]

The Academy's 1884 edition defined the criba as a perforated hide in a wooden hoop; the 1899 edition added sieves of metal sheet or wire mesh and the mechanical sieves of farming and mining.[14][15] The figurative sense “strict selection” and a botanical sense, the perforated plate in the sieve tubes of plants, are in the DRAE of 2001.[16] In Mexico and Puerto Rico criba also means “hump”.[17]

Timeline

  • 1234 – criua in documents of the Ebro valley and of Teobaldo I.[2]
  • before 1252 – the Fuero de Ledesma lists the criua among household goods.[11]
  • 1373 – the verb agrivar in an Aragonese text.[3]
  • 1379 – the Aragonese form griva in an inventory.[3][6]
  • 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia writes criba.[3][18]
  • 1549 – first record in the Americas, in New Granada.[19]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias distinguishes the criba from the finer cribo.[12]
  • 1729 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records estar como una criba.[13]
  • 1899 – the Academy adds sieves of metal and the mechanical sieves of farming and mining.[15]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A sieve or riddle: a hoop holding a mesh or a perforated sheet, used for sifting.[5][1]
  2. Any of the mechanical screens used in farming to sift seed or in mining to wash ore.[5]
  3. (figurative) A strict selection or screening: Solo diez candidatos pasaron la criba.[5][20]
  4. (botany) A sieve plate: one of the perforated walls inside the sieve tubes of plants, through which the sap passes.[5]
  5. (Mexico, Puerto Rico) A hump.[17]

Usage notes

Estar como una criba or estar hecho una criba is said colloquially of something torn and full of holes.[5][13]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. criba
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 242
  4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1978
  5. ^ a b c d e f g 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. criba
  6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cribo
  7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2324
  8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. crible
  9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. criba
  12. ^ 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. 1, 535
  13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 659
  14. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 306
  15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 283
  16. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. criba
  17. ^ 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. criba
  18. ^ 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. 814
  19. ^ 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. criba
  20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. criba

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Criba.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/criba. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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