dobla

Forms

dobla f (plural doblas)^[1]

Etymology

The noun is inherited from Latin dupla (“double”), the feminine of the Latin adjective.^[2][3][1] Corominas explains it as the feminine of the Old Spanish adjective and noun doblo (“double”), the form that became doble; doblón is its augmentative.^[4] The Academy's dictionaries of 1884 and 1899 derived it from the Spanish adjective, and Alemany in 1917 from the Latin feminine.^[5][6][7]

Latin used the feminine of the adjective as a noun for a double sum of money, twice the price.^[8] In the Visigothic laws dupla was the double penalty paid by someone who sold another's property.^[9] The adjective is formed from duo (“two”) and continues *duplos; its Greek counterpart is διπλόος (diplóos, “double”).^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The coin is first named in Alfonso X's Estoria de España (1270–1284): que diessen los moros cada dia a los romanos mill doblas “that the Moors should give the Romans a thousand doblas every day”.^[10] The noun itself is older: the Libro de Apolonio (c. 1240, in a copy of the mid-14th century) has the plural for a kind of song, and the Fueros de Aragón of 1247 use la dobla for twice an amount received.^[11][4][12]

Semantic evolution

Besides the coin, Old Spanish used dobla for a fold, as in Alfonso X's astronomical works of 1277, where parchment is folded de muchas doblas “in many folds”.^[10] The coin had different weights, values and designs over the centuries.^[2][13] Nebrija distinguishes the dobla de cabeça and the dobla dela vanda.^[14][15] Autoridades says that in the reign of Juan I the dobla castellana, also called dobla de cabeza, was worth twelve silver reales, and finds the reason for the name hard to establish: it may come from Latin, or from the coin being worth double some older coin.^[13]

Covarrubias in 1611 equates doblas with double escudos and records the law-court phrase apelar con las mil y quinientas doblas, the sum deposited by an appellant and shared among the judges if the appeal failed.^[16] The Academy's 1869 dictionary still notes that the deposit for the appeal of injusticia notoria was called by that name.^[17]

In the Americas the word appears in Cuba in 1521.^[18] Chilean miners use dobla for the grant by which a mine's owner lets someone take out all the ore he can in one day, and colloquially for a share in a meal or profit one has not paid for.^[19][20][7] In south-eastern Mexico and Central America it is the bending down of ripe maize plants so that the ears dry.^[21][22]

Timeline

• c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio (in a copy of the mid-14th century) uses doblas for a kind of song.^[11][12]
• 1247 – the Fueros de Aragón use la dobla for twice the amount received.^[12]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España names the gold coin.^[10]
• 1277 – doblas “folds” in Alfonso X's astronomical works.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin equivalents for the dobla de cabeça and the dobla dela vanda.^[15][14]
• 1521 – first record from the Americas, in Cuba.^[18]
• 1550 – the augmentative doblón.^[4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the legal deposit of las mil y quinientas doblas.^[16]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades describes the dobla castellana and the dobla de la banda.^[13]
• 1846–1847 – Domínguez records a la dobla for doubling the stake.^[23]
• 1884 – the Academy adds jugar a la dobla and derives the word from doble.^[5]
• 1917 – Alemany records the Chilean mining sense.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) A Castilian gold coin struck in the Middle Ages, of varying fineness, weight and value.^[2][1]
2. (Chile, mining) A grant by which the owner of a mine lets someone take out all the ore he can in a single day.^[20][19][24]
3. (Chile, colloquial) A share someone takes of a meal or a profit to which he contributed nothing.^[20][24]
4. (Mexico, Central America, rural) The bending down of ripe maize plants so that the ears dry.^[22][21]

Word family

• doblón

Related words

• doble
• doblar
• Latin duplus

Usage notes

Jugar a la dobla means to play doubling the stake each time.^[2][24] The dobla de la Banda was a 15th-century gold coin bearing the arms of the Order of the Band.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. dobla
3. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. dobla
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 519
5. ^ 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. 396
6. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 366
7. ^ a b c Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 610
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre
10. ^ a b c d 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. dobla
11. ^ 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. 195
12. ^ 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. dobla
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 320
14. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 337
15. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. dobla
16. ^ 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. 685
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 287
18. ^ a b 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. dobla
19. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 371
20. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. dobla
21. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 579
22. ^ 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. dobla
23. ^ 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. 636
24. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dobla