cruz

Forms

cruz f (plural cruces)^[1] Medieval texts also spell it cruç and crus.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin crux (“cross; gallows; pillory; torment”), by a semi-learned route.^[4][5][6] The Latin word survives in popular form in every Romance language, and only Spanish and Portuguese developed it as a semi-learned word, as happened with other words of the religious vocabulary such as Dios.^[4]

The same word is Portuguese cruz, Asturian cruz, Catalan creu, Occitan crotz, Old French crois, Italian croce and Romanian cruce.^[4][7][1] In Catalan the oldest form croz gave crou (1181) and then the modern form (1186) by a differentiation of the vowels.^[8] Basque gurutze is from the Latin word too.^[7]

The origin of the Latin word is unclear.^[9][1] De Vaan sets up Proto-Italic *kruk(-i)- and compares Celtic words for “heap, hill” and Germanic words for “back”, but finds the root shape un-Indo-European and allows that it may be a loanword.^[9] Segura Munguía considers it probably Punic, and Gómez de Silva asks whether it is Phoenician.^[10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The BDELC and the DCECH date the word to a charter of 960, and the DEMel has a primary record in a charter of Alfonso VI of about 1075.^[5][4][2] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) it is the cross of the Crucifixion: estando en la cruz vertud fezist muy grant “being on the cross you worked a great miracle”.^[3][12]

Semantic evolution

In Latin the word named the gallows and the pillory as well as the cross, and any torment;^[4][13] Spanish took it as the cross of Christ and the sign of the Christian.^[4][13] Alfonso X already used it for a figure of two crossing lines and, in his astronomy of 1277, for the constellation of the Southern Cross.^[14] Covarrubias in 1611 recalls that before the Redemption the cross was the shameful gallows of criminals.^[15]

The Diccionario de Autoridades records the figurative sense “heavy burden, suffering”, quoting Saint Teresa, and the top of the backbone of animals, where the forelegs and spine form a cross.^[16] Today the word also names the badge of orders, the reverse of a coin (cara o cruz “heads or tails”), the fork of a tree where the branches begin, and a heraldic charge.^[6] The Spanish word passed into Guarani as kurusu and into Tagalog as krus.^[1]

Timeline

• 960 – first record, in a charter.^[5][4]
• c. 1075 – cruz in a charter of Alfonso VI.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses it for the cross of Christ.^[3][17]
• 1218 – cruzado is first recorded; cruzada follows in 1220.^[5]
• 1277 – Alfonso X's astronomical works name the Southern Cross.^[14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it as a kind of punishment, Latin crux.^[18]
• 1512 – the first record from the Americas, a small silver cross in Puerto Rico.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the cross as the old gallows of criminals.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cross: a figure of two lines that cross at right angles.^[6][1]
2. The gallows of an upright post with a crossbar, to which condemned people were nailed or tied.^[6]
3. The sign and insignia of Christians, an image of the cross of Christ: Llevaba una cruz de plata al cuello.^[6][20]
4. The badge of many religious, military and civil orders.^[6]
5. The reverse of a coin, tails, as opposed to cara “heads”; the bad side of something.^[6][1]
6. The withers of some animals.^[6]
7. The point of a tree where the trunk ends and the branches begin.^[6]
8. A mark in the form of a cross, placed beside a person's name to show that they have died.^[6][20]
9. (figurative) A heavy burden or affliction.^[6][1]
10. (heraldry) A charge formed by the pale and the fess.^[6]

Word family

• crucero
• cruceta
• cruzar
• cruce
• cruzada
• cruzado
• encrucijada
• entrecruzar

Related words

• crucifijo
• crucificar
• crucial
• Latin crux

Usage notes

The plural is cruces.^[1] The derivative crucial is not from this word but from English, which based it on the scientific Latin phrase experimentum crucis.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cruz
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cruz
4. ^ 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, 253
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cruz
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. cruz
7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. crux
8. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 2, 1046
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 181
11. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 202
12. ^ 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. 819
13. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cruz
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. cruz
15. ^ 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, 537
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, s.v. cruz
17. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 154
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 321
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. cruz
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cruz