cuesta

Forms

cuesta f (plural cuestas)^[1]

Etymology

The word is inherited from Latin costa (“rib; side”), which in Romance came to mean the side of a mountain and then sloping ground.^[2][3][4][1] The plural cuestas meant “back” in Old Spanish, a direct development of “rib”, since that is where the ribs show most;^[1] Corominas finds no Spanish record of the sense “rib” itself, although modern dictionaries list it as old.^[2][3] The senses “rib” and “side” passed to the derivatives costilla and costado.^[2]

The same Latin word gave costa “coast”, which lacks the diphthong of the inherited word;^[1] Corominas sees in it the influence of Mozarabic, Catalan, Galician-Portuguese and western Leonese, the varieties along most of the Iberian coasts.^[2][1] Elsewhere it is Portuguese costa, Galician costa, Catalan costa, Occitan còsta, French côte, Italian costa and Romanian coastă.^[5][6]

The Latin word has been compared with Old Church Slavonic кость (kostĭ, “bone”); de Vaan rejects the link because of the Slavic word's likely ancestry and calls the Latin word isolated, without an etymology.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in a charter of 972.^[2][3] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140) has both senses: „Almófar a cuestas, la espada en la mano” “his mail hood thrown back on his shoulders, sword in hand”, and „Ellos vienen cuesta yuso” “they are coming down the slope”.^[8][9][10]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century the plural meant “the back”: the Libro de Alexandre says the enemies „ovieron sin su grado las cuestas a tornar” “had to turn their backs against their will”, and Berceo's Duelo describes blood running down the back of a scourged man.^[2] This sense was still used in the 17th century, but Autoridades calls it old, and it survives only in a cuestas “on one's back”.^[2][11] Old texts also use cuesta for “cost”: Alfonso X's Judizios (1254) speaks of „grant cuesta” “great expense”, and Autoridades quotes the Fuero Real for it.^[12][11]

Covarrubias explained the word from costa because a rib is arched, going up and then down, and recorded cuesta arriba “uphill”, “reluctantly” and ir cuesta abaxo “to go downhill, decline”.^[13] The Academy's 1843 edition gives the proverb arribaos, torgado, que tras la cuesta está lo llano, urging patience in hardship.^[14] Today la cuesta de enero is the hard month after the spending of Christmas.^[4][15] In Leonese the plural also means mountainous country.^[16]

Timeline

• 972 – first record, in a charter.^[2][3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has a cuestas “on the back” and cuesta yuso “down the slope”.^[8][9]
• c. 1230 – Berceo's Vida de San Millán speaks of „cuestas enfiestas” “steep slopes”.^[8]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas uses it for “cost, expense”.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives cuesta arriba cosa with Latin acclivis.^[17]
• 1527 – the first record from the Americas, in Nicaragua, in the phrase llevar a cuestas.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from costa and records cuesta arriba and cuesta abaxo.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary calls “rib” and “cost” old.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin costa.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. A slope; sloping ground, especially a steep stretch of a road or street: Subimos la cuesta hasta la ermita sin parar.^[4][15][1]
2. (obsolete) A rib.^[4]

Word family

• costana
• costanilla
• cuesto
• recuesto
• cuesta abajo
• cuesta arriba
• cuesta de enero

Related words

• acostar
• costado
• costilla
• costa
• recostar

Usage notes

Set phrases: a cuestas “on one's shoulders or back”, also “in one's charge”;^[15] cuesta arriba and cuesta abajo “uphill, downhill”;^[15] hacérsele a alguien cuesta arriba algo “to find something very hard”;^[15] la cuesta de enero.^[4][15] In Chile cuesta abajo en la rodada means “in decline”.^[21] The DLE has a minor homograph cuesta, from Latin quaestus (“gain; negotiation”), meaning “collection of alms”, the same as cuestación;^[22][23] Vox derives it from costar instead.^[4][22][23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 278
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cuesta
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. cuesta
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. costa
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ 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. cuesta
9. ^ a b 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. 832
10. ^ Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 157
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 2, 692
12. ^ 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. costa
13. ^ 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. 553
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 215
15. ^ a b c d e f Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cuesta
16. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. cuesta
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 322
18. ^ 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. cuesta
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 264
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 319
21. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. cuesta
22. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cuesta
23. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. quaestus