dardo

Forms

dardo m (plural dardos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish dardo, borrowed from Old French dart, which is from Frankish *darōþu.^[1][2][3][4] The Frankish word is reconstructed from Old English daroþ, Old High German tart and Old Norse darraðr.^[2][5][1] In French the word is found from about 1100, in the Chanson de Roland.^[2] The DHLF notes Medieval Latin dardus (“throwing weapon”) in the 9th century.^[5] From French it passed also into Italian dardo and Portuguese dardo.^[2] The word is also Basque darda (“arrow”).^[2]

Covarrubias (1611) derived the word from the Trojans, called Dardani after their king Dardanus, and the Diccionario de Autoridades repeated his view.^[6][7] The Academy derived it from the Old English word from 1884 to 1899.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Fueros de Aragón of 1247 already list the dardo among weapons, beside the lance and the arrow: dardo. o lança. o sayeta. o qual quier otra arma.^[10] The Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, known from a 15th-century copy) describes clouds of stones and darts, and Herman the German's translation of the Psalter (c. 1240–1272) compares sharp words to darts.^[10] Corominas's first record is the Libros del acedrex of Alfonso X (1283).^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The weapon was a small, thin lance thrown by hand.^[7][4] Covarrubias calls it a weapon of the Basques, and records the saying el dardillo de Burgos for something pawned for more than it is worth.^[6] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 has the proverb este tira dardo, que se precia del arado “he who prides himself on the plough throws the dart well”, meaning that a good farmer makes a good soldier.^[11] The figurative sense, a cutting or spiteful remark, is in Domínguez (1846), and the DLE keeps it.^[12][4] Today the word also names the small darts of the game of darts.^[13] In Argentina it is a fruiting branch of the apple tree, and in Fuerteventura a short stick.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 1247 – the Fueros de Aragón list the dardo among weapons.^[10]
• 1283 – the Libros del acedrex of Alfonso X, Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• 1331 – an Aragonese inventory.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin hastile and iaculum hamatum.^[15]
• 1533 – the first record from the Americas, in Santa Marta.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the word from Dardanus, king of Troy.^[6]
• 1753 – first record of dardo as the name of a river fish.^[17]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records the proverb este tira dardo, que se precia del arado.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dart or javelin: a throwing weapon like a small, thin lance, thrown by hand.^[4][1]
2. A dart used in the game of darts: Clavó tres dardos en el centro de la diana.^[13][1]
3. (ichthyology) A grey mullet, the mújol.^[4]
4. (figurative) A cutting, spiteful or aggressive remark: Le lanzó un dardo sobre su sueldo.^[4][18]

Word family

• dardada

Usage notes

The fish name has a separate origin, according to the DHLE: it was taken from French dard, a 16th-century alteration under the influence of the weapon's name of Old French dars, which goes back to Medieval Latin darsus, probably of Celtic origin.^[17] It is first recorded in Spanish in 1753, in a translation of Pluche's Spectacle de la nature.^[17] The DLE now defines it as the mújol, a sea fish, while the older dictionaries described a freshwater fish.^[17][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 427
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dardo
4. ^ 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. dardo
5. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 634
7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 28
8. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 337
9. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 312
10. ^ 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. dardo
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 277
12. ^ 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. 539
13. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. dardo
14. ^ Maffiotte, Luis (1993), Los canarismos (manuscript c. 1887), ed. Lothar Siemens Hernández, Las Palmas: Instituto de Estudios Canarios, p. 65
15. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 327
16. ^ 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. dardo
17. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. dardo
18. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dardo