cuartillo

Forms

cuartillo m (plural cuartillos)^[1] The Biblia de Alba (1422–1433) has the diphthongised form quartiello.^[2] DEMel files under the same lemma the feminine quartiella, recorded from 1221 in the Fuero de Plasencia.^[3]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish cuarto + -illo, a diminutive of the word for a fourth part.^[4][5][1] Wiktionary traces it through Old Spanish quartillo (“little fourth”) and names cuartilla as its doublet.^[1]

Portuguese quartilho is a borrowing of the Spanish word, as Houaiss and Nascentes agree.^[6][7] Houaiss's first record is a plural form of 1302.^[6] Wiktionary also compares Galician cuartillo.^[1]

cuarto continues Latin quartus (“fourth”) and is recorded from 1074.^[8][9] The OLD derives the Latin word from earlier *qutur-tos and compares Ancient Greek τέταρτος (tétartos).^[10] Wiktionary takes it back through Proto-Italic *kʷeturtos to Proto-Indo-European *kʷeturtos, from *kʷetwóres (“four”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is in Ruy González de Clavijo's Historia del gran Tamorlán (c. 1406), of a cup that would hold about three quartillos.^[2] This is two centuries before the date Segura Munguía gives from Corominas, the beginning of the 17th century.^[9][11] In the Cortes of Madrid of 1435 the quartillo is already a fixed wine measure beside the arroba, the cántara and the azumbre, to follow the Toledo standard.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the 15th century the word named a fourth of an azumbre for liquids and a fourth of a celemín for grain; by 1477–1491 it was also a quarter of a real in accounts (seys rreales e quartillo de plata).^[2] Covarrubias in 1611 gives the same three senses, and Cervantes uses both the wine measure and the coin in the Quijote.^[12][13] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 adds a billon coin with silver minted by Enrique IV of Castile, worth a quarter of a real, and the phrases andar a tres menos cuartillo “to be short of money; to quarrel” and ir de cuartillo “to share profit and loss in a venture”.^[14] The edition of 1884 first gives the metric equivalents, 1,156 ml for the dry measure and 504 ml for liquids.^[5]

The word was taken to the Americas early: a record of 1513 from Puerto Rico names a half cuartillo of wood, and in Mexico City in 1545 cuartillos were coins beside half reals.^[15] In Cuba it was a money of account, half a medio or a quarter of a real, and tavern keepers issued their own tokens of that name.^[16][17] In Honduras it was a ring-shaped curd cake sold for a cuartillo.^[18][19] The DAMER records it as a grain measure of about two litres in Mexico, a measure for selling salt in the Dominican Republic and a quarter of a cajuela in Costa Rica.^[20]

Timeline

• c. 1406 – first record of quartillo, in Clavijo's Historia del gran Tamorlán.^[2]
• 1435 – the Cortes of Madrid list it among the Toledo wine measures.^[2]
• 1477–1491 – the accounts of Isabella's treasurer price ribbon at six reals and a quartillo of silver.^[2]
• 1513 – first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines the coin and the two measures.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the coin of Enrique IV and the phrase andar a tres menos cuartillo.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the metric equivalents and derives it from cuarto.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) A dry measure for grain, a quarter of a celemín, about 1.156 litres.^[4][1]
2. (historical) A liquid measure, a quarter of an azumbre, about 0.504 litres.^[4][1]
3. (historical) A quarter of a real.^[4][1]
4. (historical) A billon coin with some silver, minted by Enrique IV of Castile and worth a quarter of a real.^[4]
5. (Mexico) A measure for grain or seeds equal to about two litres.^[20]

Related words

• cuarto
• cuartilla
• cuarterón
• Portuguese quartilho
• Latin quartus

Usage notes

Andar a tres menos cuartillo means “to be short of money” and also “to quarrel”;^[1] ir de cuartillo is “to go shares in a venture”.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cuartillo
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. cuartillo
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. cuartillo
5. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 313
6. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. quartilho
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. quartilho
8. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cuarto
9. ^ a b Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 627
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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. cuartillo
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. 1239
13. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 339
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 258
15. ^ a b 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. cuartillo
16. ^ Pichardo, Esteban (1875), Diccionario provincial casi-razonado de vozes y frases cubanas, 4th ed., La Habana: Imprenta El Trabajo, p. 109
17. ^ Suárez, Constantino (1921), Vocabulario cubano, La Habana: Librería Cervantes / Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Compañía, p. 161
18. ^ Membreño, Alberto (1897), Hondureñismos: vocabulario de los provincialismos de Honduras, 2nd ed., Tegucigalpa: Tipografía Nacional, p. 43
19. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 272
20. ^ 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. cuartillo