cucaracha

Forms

cucaracha f (plural cucarachas)^[1]

Etymology

According to Corominas it is from Spanish cuca (“caterpillar, larva of a moth”), a word of expressive creation from children's speech, which itself means “cockroach” in Álava and the Philippines.^[2][3][4][1] In other Romance languages the base names any small creature: Catalan cuca is “bug, vermin” and cuc “worm”, and Occitan cuco is a caterpillar or moth.^[2] Variants with other vowels, such as ⟨coca⟩ “cockroach” at Cespedosa, show that the word is expressive.^[2] The Wikcionario analyses it as the same base with the suffix ⟨-acha⟩.^[5]

Corominas rejects the earlier explanations.^[2] Covarrubias, and the Diccionario de Autoridades after Laguna's Dioscorides, derived it from a Greek name of the woodlouse, ⟨cubaris⟩.^[6][7] Riegler thought it came from a South American language, crossed with the Spanish base, and connected it with Dutch kakkerlak and German Kakerlak; but the word already named a European creature, the woodlouse or centipede, in the middle of the 16th century, so Corominas holds that it cannot come from America.^[2] Segovia considered it Quechua.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Gabriel Alonso de Herrera's Obra de agricultura (1513), the earliest hit in the CDH, has a remedy in which unas cucarachas y lombrizes de tierra “some cucarachas and earthworms” are fried in rose oil.^[9] Corominas's first record is from Fernández de Oviedo in 1535, in the form cucaraza, and the form cucaracha from Lope de Rueda (d. 1565).^[2] In Rueda, in Oudin's dictionary of 1607 and in Covarrubias the word means a woodlouse or a centipede, a many-legged creature living under water jars and stones.^[2][6]

Semantic evolution

In the Indies the word was soon applied to the cockroach: Oviedo writes from Santo Domingo of the cucarazas that dirty the clothes, which in Andalusia are called fótulas, and Eugenio de Salazar in 1573 of cucarachas, que allí llaman curianas.^[10][9] The Diccionario de Autoridades still defines the woodlouse, but adds cucaracha de Indias, a smooth insect bred in the goods shipped in boxes from the Indies.^[7] The Academy defines the cockroach, Blatta orientalis, from 1817, with the senses “light-brown snuff” and cucaracha martín, a nickname for a dark woman, which Covarrubias already records.^[11][6] Today the cockroach is the common sense, in Spain, the Americas and the Philippines.^[2]

From the Spanish word come Genoese cucuácia and the English word cockroach (cacarootch 1624), reshaped after English cock “cook”.^[2][12] English roach was cut from it by 1836.^[2] In the Americas the word names old or small cars (Mexico, Cuba, Argentina), the trailer car of a tram (Argentina, 1910), a ten-cent nickel coin (Ecuador) and several plants.^{[13][14][15][16]}

Timeline

• 1250–1300 – an Alfonsine text (DPCAX siglum MOA) mentions cocaraxos del campo among the creatures birds eat; the DPCAX files this form under cucaracha.^[17]
• 1513 – Herrera's Obra de agricultura, the first record of cucaracha.^[9]
• 1535 – Fernández de Oviedo uses the form cucaraza;^[2][3] Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• 1545–1565 – Lope de Rueda uses cucaracha de sótanos as an insult.^[9][2]
• 1573 – Eugenio de Salazar writes from Santo Domingo of the cockroaches called curianas.^[10]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines a many-legged creature living under water jars.^[6]
• 1624 – English cacarootch, from the Spanish word.^[2]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades adds cucaracha de Indias.^[7]
• 1817 – the Academy defines the cockroach, Blatta orientalis.^[11]
• 1910 – Garzón records the Argentine sense “trailer car of a tram”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A woodlouse (cochinilla de humedad).^[4][18]
2. cockroach: a nocturnal, fast-running insect about three centimetres long, with a flat body, black above and reddish below, and long antennae: Encontré una cucaracha debajo del fregadero.^[4][1]
3. The American cockroach, reddish, with wing covers a little longer than its body.^[4]
4. A light-brown snuff (tabaco cucarachero).^[4]
5. (Mexico, Cuba, Argentina, colloquial) A small old car, a jalopy.^[16][19]

Word family

• cucarachero
• cucarachera

Related words

• cuca
• curiana
• fótula
• English cockroach

Usage notes

Other names for the insect are curiana, fótula and barata.^[18] Cucaracha martín was an old nickname for a dark woman.^[6][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 264
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cucaracha
4. ^ a b c d e 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. cucaracha
5. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
6. ^ a b c d e Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 540
7. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 675
8. ^ Segovia, Lisandro (1911), Diccionario de argentinismos, neologismos y barbarismos, Buenos Aires: Imprenta de Coni Hermanos, p. 112
9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. cucaracha
10. ^ 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. cucaracha
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 260
12. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
13. ^ a b Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 133
14. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 273
15. ^ Lemos R., Gustavo (1920–1922), Semántica o ensayo de lexicografía ecuatoriana, Guayaquil, with Suplemento (1922), p. 1, 62
16. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
17. ^ 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. cucaracha
18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cucaracha
19. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cucaracha
20. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. cucaracha