diablo

Forms

diablo m (plural diablos, feminine diabla, feminine plural diablas)^[1] The oldest form is diábolo in the Glosas Emilianenses.^[2][3] Old Spanish also wrote deablo.^[2][3] Euphemistic alterations such as diantre and dianche are common, and Asturian and Galician have diañu, diaño.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin diabolus (“devil”), according to Corominas a word taken from Church Latin,^[2][4][5] which is from Ancient Greek διάβολος (diábolos), properly “one who divides or slanders”.^[2][5] Wiktionary calls the Old Spanish word diablo a semi-learned borrowing.^[1] The Greek noun comes from διαβάλλω (diabállō, “to set at odds, slander”), from δια- (dia-, “through”) and βάλλω (bállō, “to throw”).^[2][6][1] The Septuagint used it as “enemy” and for Satan, and the New Testament for the Devil.^[7]

The same Latin word is Portuguese diabo, Catalan diable, French diable and Italian diavolo.^[8][9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Glosas Emilianenses, of about 950, have the form diábolo;^[2][4] diablo first appears in Berceo.^[2][4] The earliest CDH hit is the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), on the mountain where „quiso tentar el diablo a Christus” “the devil wished to tempt Christ”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word was three syllables (dï-a-blo) until the 15th century and mostly in the 16th; from the 17th century, in Góngora and Lope, two syllables prevailed.^[2] Lope called it a high-flown word, but it was never less popular than demonio.^[2] Autoridades remarked that this word, which ought to be abhorred, was among the commonest in popular phrases, used to exaggerate qualities good or bad.^[11]

Figurative senses for a wild, reckless or very ugly person are in Autoridades,^[4][11] and the Academy added “a shrewd, crafty person” by 1884.^[12] Terreros recorded abogado del diablo, the promoter of the faith in beatifications.^[13] In Argentina it became an adjective “sly, roguish”.^[2][14] In the Americas the word names tools (a billiard rest, a nail-puller in Chile, a device for stealing electricity in Mexico), a two-wheeled log cart in Chile and a fish in Cuba and Puerto Rico.^{[15][16][17][18]} English borrowed it as diablo.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 950 – the Glosas Emilianenses, with the form diábolo.^[2][4]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy).^[10]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo has diablo and the participle endiablado.^[2][4]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for the fallen angels.^[19]
• 1335 – first record of diablura.^[4]
• 1515 – the first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains it from Greek as “accuser, slanderer, deceiver”.^[21]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades notes how common the word is in popular phrases.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Judaeo-Christian tradition) The prince of the angels who rebelled against God, the spirit of evil, Satan: el diablo.^[5][1]
2. Each of the rebel angels cast into the abyss; a devil, demon.^[5][1]
3. A bad-tempered, very naughty or reckless person.^[5]
4. A very ugly person.^[5]
5. A shrewd, crafty person, skilful even in good things.^[5]
6. A wooden rest for the cue in billiards.^[5]
7. A machine for carding.^[5]
8. (Mexico) A device for stealing electricity from the mains.^[5][15]
9. (Chile, Mexico) A crowbar or nail-puller.^[15][1]
10. (Peru) A three-armed iron tool for mending shoes.^[5]

Word family

• diablura
• diablillo
• endiablado
• endiablar

Related words

• diabólico
• demonio
• Latin diabolus
• Portuguese diabo

Usage notes

Common phrases include pobre diablo “poor devil”, abogado del diablo “devil's advocate” and the proverb más sabe el diablo por viejo que por diablo.^[1][22][13] The feminine is diabla.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 486
3. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 191
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. diablo
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. diablo
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 228
7. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. διάβολος
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2621
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2160
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. diablo
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 258
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 381
13. ^ a b Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 1, 669
14. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 173
15. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. diablo
16. ^ Medina, José Toribio (1927), Chilenismos: apuntes lexicográficos, Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Universo, p. 35
17. ^ Pichardo, Esteban (1875), Diccionario provincial casi-razonado de vozes y frases cubanas, 4th ed., La Habana: Imprenta El Trabajo, p. 130
18. ^ Segovia, Lisandro (1911), Diccionario de argentinismos, neologismos y barbarismos, Buenos Aires: Imprenta de Coni Hermanos, p. 119
19. ^ 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. diablo
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. diablo
21. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 668
22. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 178