disco

disco¹ disc

Pronunciation

• /ˈdisko/, [ˈd̪is.ko]^[1]

Forms

disco m (plural discos)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the disc is borrowed from Latin discus (“quoit; dish”), a learned borrowing.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek δίσκος (dískos, “quoit”).^[5][6] The traditional explanation of the Greek noun, from δικεῖν (dikeîn, “to throw”), is accepted by Gómez de Silva;^[7][8][1] Beekes, following Furnée, rejects it because the suffix -σκος (-skos) is rare in nouns, and considers the word perhaps Pre-Greek.^[7][8][1]

The Latin word also lived on by inheritance in Italian desco “table”, Old Occitan desc and Old French deis, today's French dais, and it was borrowed as the English word dish.^[9][10] For a popular Spanish descendant Corominas refers to desga.^[2] García de Diego lists Catalan desca “basket” and the Asturian desca “a flat vessel” under the Latin word, but adds that these may come from Vulgar Latin *depsicare “to knead”.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first hit is in Enrique de Villena's translation and glosses of the Aeneid (1427–1428, in a copy of 1442), where el disco is one of three games held in Sicily, beside the palestra and the çesto.^[12] The DTME also dates the word in Spanish from 1427.^[13] Corominas's first record is later, Fernando de Herrera's translation of Horace, dated 1580 in the Breve diccionario.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

For a long time the word named only the ancient throwing disc: Covarrubias described it as a ball of stone or iron with a hole through it, thrown in the gymnasium, and Corominas notes that it is missing from Nebrija, Percyvall and Oudin, while Alonso de Palencia avoided it in 1490 when translating Latin discus.^[14][2] The Diccionario de Autoridades called it a Latin word of little use and added the astronomical sense, the body of the Sun or the Moon as it appears to the eye, and the optical sense of a cut lens.^[15]

In the 19th century the Academy added the glass disc of the electrical machine (1843) and the general sense of any cylinder whose base is very large compared with its height (1869).^[16][17] The gramophone record is recorded in Argentina in 1913.^[18] From it came the colloquial sense of a tiresome speech repeated again and again, which Ortiz noted in Cuba as a new word and Santamaría in the phrase cambiar el disco “change the record”.^{[18][19][20][4]} Bénaben links the word's success in the 20th century to the recording of sound, images and computer data, as in disco compacto and disco duro.^[21] In El Salvador it also names a maize tortilla and a gold coin, and in the Dominican Republic a song.^[22][23]

Timeline

• 1427–1428 – Villena's glosses on the Aeneid name el disco among the ancient games.^[12][13]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia translates Latin discus without using the word.^[2]
• 1580 – Fernando de Herrera's translation of Horace, Corominas's first record.^[3][2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the ancient throwing disc.^[14]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades adds the astronomical sense.^[15]
• 1793 – the first record from the Americas, in Peru: el disco solar.^[18]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the glass disc of the electrical machine.^[16]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin and Greek and a botanical sense.^[24]
• 1913 – gramophone records, in Argentina.^[18]
• 1917 – Alemany records the railway signal disco de señales.^[25]

Meanings

Noun

1. A disc: a cylindrical body whose base is very large compared with its height.^[4][1]
2. A record: a round sheet, mostly of plastic, that plays recorded sound on a record player (tocadiscos); an album.^[4][1]
3. An optical disc, especially one holding music, pictures or video; in computing, a storage disc: disco duro.^[4][26]
4. The rotary dial of an old telephone.^[4][1]
5. A road sign on a metal plate; each of the three lights of a traffic light (semáforo).^[4]
6. A brake disc.^[4]
7. The round flat shape in which the Sun, the Moon and the planets appear; any round figure.^[4]
8. (colloquial) A tiresome speech or explanation that someone keeps repeating.^[4][20]
9. (architecture) A round ornament on the frieze of the Doric order.^[4]
10. (botany) The part of a leaf within its edges.^[4]
11. (athletics) The discus, the plate thrown in a field event.^[4][1]

Word family

• discoteca
• disquería
• pinchadiscos
• portadiscos
• tocadiscos
• videodisco
• discoidal

disco² discotheque

Pronunciation

• /ˈdisko/, [ˈd̪is.ko]^[1]

Forms

disco f (plural discos)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the discotheque is a clipping from Spanish discoteca, according to the Academy and Wiktionary.^[4][1][27] discoteca itself is formed from disco¹ and -teca, from Ancient Greek θήκη (thḗkē, “case, box”).^[28][2] Gómez de Silva derives the Mexican word instead from the English word disco, itself shortened from French discothèque.^[29]

Earliest recorded meaning

León's dictionary of slang (1980) records the feminine disco “discotheque”, and also disco as an adjective for the music played in such places.^[30] The full word discoteca appears in the CDH from 1951, first for a record cabinet and a collection of records.^[31]

Timeline

• 1951 – discoteca first appears in the CDH, for a place to keep records.^[31]
• 1980 – León records disco “discotheque” and música disco.^[30]
• 2001 – Gómez de Silva records the word in Mexico as a night club for dancing.^[29]

Meanings

Noun

1. (colloquial) A discotheque, a club where people drink and dance to recorded music.^[4][1][29]