dehesa

Forms

dehesa f (plural dehesas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote defesa (still in Juan Ruiz) beside dehesa, which is common from the 14th century;^[2][3] devesa appears in Leonese documents of the 13th century.^[4][2][3] Old Riojan had hedesa and edesa; parts of Salamanca and Cáceres say jesa or hesa, and the Sierra de Gata has devesa or vesa.^[5][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish defesa, inherited from Late Latin dēfēnsa (“defence; prohibition”), the feminine of Latin dēfēnsus (“defended, guarded”), past participle of dēfendō (“to ward off, defend”).^[4][6][7][1] In the Middle Ages the Late Latin noun meant “prohibition”, and the land took the name because it was fenced off and closed to outside herds.^[4][8][9] The learned defensa is a doublet borrowed from the same Latin word.^[1][9]

The same word is Portuguese devesa and Portuguese defesa, Galician devesa, Asturian devesa and Catalan devesa.^[4][5][10] The Latin verb is formed with dē- from a verb *fendō “to strike, thrust”, which Wiktionary traces to Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰen- (“to strike, kill”).^[1]

Castilian treated the /f/ inside the word as if it began a word and turned it into /h/, which later fell silent;^[11] Catalan, Occitan and the Sierra de Gata voiced it instead to /v/.^[4][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the form dejesa in a charter of San Pedro de Arlanza of 924, and dehesa itself in a document from Lerma of 1148.^[4] DEMel lists defesa in a charter of 927.^[3] The early records name land reserved as pasture: the Fuero de Brihuega (c. 1242) fines anyone who brings a mare to a horse grazing en su prado o en su alcazer o en su dehesa.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Alfonso X's prose the word can name woodland as well as pasture.^[12] Covarrubias in 1611 explained the name correctly, as land kept guardada y defendida until the herds were let in, though he also reported Diego de Urrea's view that it was Arabic.^[13] Autoridades (1732) defined it as uncultivated land for grazing, used only by its owner's or tenant's herds, and recorded proverbs such as asno que entra en dehesa ajena, volverá cargado de leña.^[14]

The 19th-century dictionaries named many kinds of dehesa: boyal for working oxen, carnicera for the cattle supplying a town's meat, potril for young horses, and concejil or comunal for common grazing.^[15][16] Salvá and Gaspar y Roig note that in Galicia the word meant wooded, enclosed land.^[15][17] The current DLE defines it as land, usually fenced and wooded, used mainly for pasture.^[7]

Timeline

• 924 – dejesa in a charter of San Pedro de Arlanza.^[4][6]
• 1148 – the form dehesa in a document from Lerma.^[4]
• c. 1242 – the Fuero de Brihuega uses dehesa for reserved pasture.^[2]
• 1256 – the derivatives defesados and defesero.^[4]
• 14th century – Juan Ruiz still writes defesa (stanza 298).^[4][18]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives dehesa concegil as Latin ager compascuus.^[19]
• 1526 – first record in the Americas, defisas in Honduras.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the name from land defendida.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin defensa.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pasture: an area of land, usually fenced and planted with trees, used mainly for grazing livestock.^[7][21][1]

Word family

• dehesar
• adehesar
• dehesero
• endehesar

Related words

• defensa
• defender
• Latin dēfendō
• Portuguese devesa

Usage notes

Set phrases name the use of the land: dehesa boyal, common pasture for the village cattle;^[21] dehesa carneril, for rams;^[21] dehesa potril, where colts are raised after weaning.^[7][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. dehesa
3. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. dehesa
4. ^ 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, 435
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2146
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dehesa
7. ^ a b c d 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. dehesa
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. dehesa
9. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. dehesa
10. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. devesa
11. ^ a b Prat Sabater, Marta (2003), Préstamos del catalán en el léxico español, doctoral thesis, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, p. 187
12. ^ 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. dehesa
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. 1, 640
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 54
15. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 350
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 343
17. ^ Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 741
18. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 150
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 328
20. ^ 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. defisa
21. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dehesa