cuadro

Forms

cuadro m (plural cuadros)^[1] Old Spanish and Classical Spanish wrote quadro; the Diccionario de Autoridades still has the headword quadro, and the Academy's 1817 edition spells it cuadro.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin quadrum (“a square”), a word of the same family as quattuor (“four”).^[5][6][1] The DLE and Moliner derive it instead from the adjective quadrus (“square”), whose neuter was used as a noun; the adjective itself is only attested from Late Latin.^[7][8][9][1]

Corominas takes the Spanish adjective, found in learned authors such as Jáuregui, for a Latinism, and the nautical vela cuadra (“square sail”) for an Italianism, since the adjective is common in Italian.^[5] The same Latin noun is Portuguese quadro, Galician cadro, Italian quadro and Catalan caire (“edge, side”).^[10][11][12] The REW notes that French cadre (“frame”) was borrowed from the Italian word.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates cuadro to 968, from a charter in Oelschläger's list of first records.^[5][6] Alfonso X's astronomical works (1277) have a chapter on marking “el quadro de la sombra”, the square of the shadow, on the quadrant, in the geometrical sense.^[13] The DEMel lists quadro in a document of Alfonso X of 1270 and quadros in his General estoria.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From a square or rectangle the word passed to objects of that shape.^[14] The Diccionario de Autoridades already gives it for any painted canvas or plate, “because it is usually made in a square”, for a frame, and for a bed of a garden laid out with flowers and herbs.^[3] Bénaben explains the painting sense as a metonymy: the word came to name the work itself rather than its outline.^[14] The Academy's 1817 edition adds the infantry square formed against cavalry and the platen of the printing press, and in the slang of thieves cuadro “dagger” and cuadros “dice”.^[4]

The theatre gave new senses in the 19th century: Gaspar y Roig records the scenes between two changes of scenery, and the Academy in 1884 the short parts into which the acts of modern plays are divided.^[15][16] Alemany adds the living group of actors that stays still before the audience and the vivid description of a scene.^[17] According to Bénaben, the idea of framing others led in the 19th and 20th centuries to cuadros for people in management posts.^[14] In medicine cuadro clínico is the set of symptoms of a disease.^[7]

In the Americas cuadro is a football team in several countries, a political leader in Cuba and the Dominican Republic, a close friend in Cuba and northern Colombia, and the baseball infield in Nicaragua and Cuba.^[18] In Colombia it was the usual word for a blackboard, and in Chile it named the slaughterhouse.^[19] Tagalog kuwadro is borrowed from it.^[1]

Timeline

• 968 – first recorded, in a charter.^[5][6]
• 1270 – quadro in a document of Alfonso X.^[2]
• 1277 – el quadro de la sombra in Alfonso X's astronomical works.^[13]
• 1553 – an early record from the Americas, in Nueva Granada: treinta varas en cuadro “thirty yards square”.^[20]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the senses “painting” and “garden bed”.^[3]
• 1817 – the Academy records the military square and the slang senses “dagger” and “dice”.^[4]
• 1884 – the Academy records the divisions of the acts of a play.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A square; also a rectangle.^[7][1]
2. A painting, drawing or print on canvas, wood or paper, usually framed: Colgaron un cuadro de Sorolla en el salón.^[7][21]
3. A frame, the piece that surrounds something.^[7][1]
4. In a garden, a bed of worked ground laid out in a square and planted with flowers and herbs.^[7]
5. In Basque pelota courts, each of the divisions marked on the side wall for the serve.^[7]
6. (theatre) A group of performers who stay still before the audience for some moments; also a short division of an act.^[7][21]
7. A description, written or spoken, so lively that the reader or listener can picture the scene.^[7]
8. A table or chart: names, figures or other data set out graphically to show how they relate.^[7][1]
9. A sight or scene, of nature or of people, that moves or horrifies whoever sees it: Al llegar los bomberos, el cuadro era desolador.^[7][21]
10. A group of people who work as a team; the staff or managers of an organization.^[7][1]
11. (mechanics) The frame of a bicycle or motorcycle.^[7][1]
12. (medicine) The symptoms of a patient or a disease, short for cuadro clínico.^[7][1]
13. (Latin America) A football team.^[18]

Word family

• encuadrar
• recuadro

Related words

• cuadrar
• cuadra
• cuadrado
• cuadrilla
• escuadra
• cuatro
• Latin quadrum
• Italian quadro

Usage notes

En cuadro “in a square” is an old phrase of measurement, and the military quedarse en cuadro first meant to be left with only the officers of a unit.^[22][23] Cuadro de mando and cuadro de distribución are a control panel and a switchboard.^[7][8]

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 Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cuadro
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 449
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 256
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 255
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cuadro
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. cuadro
8. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cuadro
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cuadro
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. quadrus
12. ^ 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, 397
13. ^ 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. cuadro
14. ^ a b c Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. cuadro
15. ^ Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 685
16. ^ 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. 310
17. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 484
18. ^ 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. cuadro
19. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 416
20. ^ 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. cuadro
21. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cuadro
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 209
23. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 500