cumbre

Forms

cumbre f (plural cumbres)^[1] Old Spanish wrote both cumbre and cunbre.^[2][3] Older texts sometimes treat the word as masculine, and in Salamanca and León el cumbre is still the ridge beam or the highest part of a house.^[4][5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish cunbre, inherited from Latin culmen (“roof ridge; summit”).^[3][7][8][1] Its doublet is the learned culmen.^[1]

Although the Latin word had a short ⟨u⟩, which normally gives Spanish ⟨o⟩, Corominas rules out a learned or semi-learned origin.^[3] He compares dulce and surco, words that cannot be learned either, and explains the ⟨u⟩ by the /l/, which he thinks became a glide, closed the vowel before it and was then absorbed.^[3]

The Latin word has been lost in most Romance languages; it survives in Portuguese cume, Galician cume, Asturian cume, Romanian and Romansh.^[3][9][1] Old French and Old Italian had forms of it for the ridge of a roof.^[3]

The Latin noun is a contracted form of columen (“top, summit”).^[10][11] De Vaan derives both from Proto-Italic *kelamen, from Proto-Indo-European *kelH-men- (“top, summit”), related to Old English holm (“island”); the contracted form arose in the oblique cases.^[12] The PIE root is *kelH- (“to rise, be tall”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo uses the word in the Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (c. 1236, in a copy of the late 13th century) in the Latin sense, the roof or ridge of a building: a blind man healed by the saint vedié enna eglesia el suelo e la cumbre “saw the floor and the roof in the church”.^[13][3][14] A charter of 1249 from Carmona already has the form cunbre.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the ridge of a roof the word passed to the top of a hill or mountain, the usual sense in 13th-century charters and in Alfonso X's General Estoria.^[13][15] The roof sense passed to the derivative cumbrera.^[3] A figurative sense, the highest point of something, is found in Sem Tob in the 14th century.^[3] Autoridades gives the figurative la cumbre de la dignidad, de la ciencia with examples from Saint Teresa and Cervantes.^[16]

Cumbre has come to name a meeting of heads of state or government, a calque of English summit.^[1] The Academy's dictionary has this sense by 2001.^[17] Used after another noun, cumbre acts as an adjective for the most important or perfect thing of its kind, as in obra cumbre.^[8][18]

In the Canary Islands la cumbre is the high central part of an island, as against the middle slopes and the coast; it is recorded from 1594.^[19][20] In the thieves' cant of the 17th century it meant “high”.^[21]

Timeline

• c. 1236 – Berceo uses it for the roof of a church.^[13][3]
• 1249 – cunbre in a charter from Carmona.^[2]
• c. 1280 – Alfonso X's General Estoria uses it for hilltops.^[15]
• 14th century – the first figurative use, in Sem Tob.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses cumbre de monte with Latin iugum montis.^[22]
• 1548 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[23]
• 1594 – the Canarian sense “high central part of an island”, in Espinosa's history.^[19]
• 1609 – Hidalgo's glossary of thieves' cant gives it as “high”.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin culmen.^[24]
• 1884 – the Academy defines the figurative sense as the greatest height a thing can reach.^[25]

Meanings

Noun

1. The summit or top of a mountain.^[8][1]
2. The highest point or greatest degree that something reaches: Llegó a la cumbre de su fama con su tercera novela.^[8][26]
3. A meeting of heads of state or government or other top leaders to deal with important matters: La cumbre de presidentes terminó sin acuerdo.^[8][1]
4. (Canary Islands) The high central part of an island.^[20]
5. (León, Salamanca; masculine) The ridge beam or highest part of a house.^[5][6]

Adjective

1. Of the highest importance or perfection in its kind, usually after a noun and invariable: la obra cumbre del pintor.^[8][18]
2. Of a meeting: attended by the highest leaders: conferencia cumbre.^[8]

Word family

• cumbrera
• encumbrar
• cumbral

Related words

• culminación
• culminar
• culmen
• Portuguese cume

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. cumbre
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 289
4. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 327
5. ^ a b Lamano y Beneite, José de (1915), El dialecto vulgar salmantino, Salamanca: Tipografía Popular, p. 364
6. ^ a b 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. cumbre
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cumbre
8. ^ a b c d e f g 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. cumbre
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. culmen
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ 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. cumbre
14. ^ 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. 837
15. ^ 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. cumbre
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. cumbre
17. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. cumbre
18. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. cumbre
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. cumbre
20. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. cumbre
21. ^ a b Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 171
22. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 322
23. ^ 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. cumbre
24. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 555
25. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 321
26. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cumbre