devanar

Forms

devanar (first-person singular present devano, first-person singular preterite devané, past participle devanado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *depanāre (“to wind off thread”), formed on pānus (“thread wound on a bobbin”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin noun was taken from Ancient Greek πᾶνος (pânos), the Doric form, which corresponds to Attic πῆνος (pênos).^[2][5][1] De Vaan accepts the loan for the sense “spool with thread”, while the sense “abscess” of the Latin word may have another origin.^[5]

The medieval texts already write ⟨v⟩ instead of the expected ⟨b⟩;^[2] Corominas puts it down to confusion with the family of vano (see desván).^[2] In the villages of Bielsa (Aragon) the form depanar keeps the Latin /p/.^[2]

The verb is found across Romance: Portuguese dobar, Catalan debanar, Occitan debanar, Sardinian demanare, Italian dipanare and Romanian depăna.^[2][6][1] Corominas doubts that Old French had a corresponding verb.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the Escorial glossary of about 1400, where the word and its derivative devanadera “winder” already have ⟨v⟩.^[2] The earliest literary record in the CDH is a poem of Fernando de Guevara (before 1440): Déxome de ovillar mis madexas et devano “I stop balling my skeins and I wind”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

The proverb todo es menester, cuanto Marta hila y Pedro devana was collected among Santillana's Refranes que dizen las viejas tras el fuego.^[7] Nebrija gave Latin glomero “to form into a ball”, and Covarrubias defined it as gathering thread into a ball from the winder.^[8][9] Autoridades added the transferred sense “to wrap one thing in another” and the phrase devanar las tripas “to annoy someone greatly”.^[10]

The figurative devanarse los sesos “to rack one's brains” is common;^[1][11] In Cuba and Mexico devanarse is to writhe with laughter, pain or crying, and in Honduras and El Salvador the verb is used for throwing something to the ground or a horse rolling on it.^[12][13]

Timeline

• c. 1400 – first record, in the Escorial glossary, with devanadera.^[2][3]
• before 1440 – Fernando de Guevara's poem.^[7]
• before 1454 – the proverb about Marta and Pedro among Santillana's Refranes.^[7]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates it Latin glomero.^[8]
• 1571 – first record from the Americas, in a dictionary printed in Mexico City.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias links it to the circular motion of the devanadera.^[9]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from de and vano; the current DLE gives Latin *depanāre.^[15][4]

Meanings

Verb

1. To wind thread, wire, rope or the like round and round an axis, a reel (carrete) or into a ball: Mi abuela devanaba la lana en un ovillo.^[4][1]
2. (Cuba, Mexico; reflexive) To writhe with laughter, pain or weeping.^[12][11]
3. (Honduras, El Salvador) To throw something or someone to the ground.^[13][1]

Word family

• devanadera
• devanador

Related words

• Latin pānus
• Catalan debanar
• Italian dipanare

Usage notes

Devanarse los sesos “to rack one's brains” is a set phrase.^[1][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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, 485
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. devanar
4. ^ a b c 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. devanar
5. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2569
7. ^ 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. devanar
8. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (c. 1495), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca (facsimile, Madrid: Real Academia Española 1951), p. 82
9. ^ 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. 665
10. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 248
11. ^ a b c Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 574
12. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. devanar
13. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. devanar
14. ^ 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. devanar
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 379