doncella

Forms

doncella f (plural doncellas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *domnicilla, a diminutive of domna (“lady, mistress”), the contracted form of the classical noun.^[2][3][4] Wiktionary writes the Vulgar Latin form *domnicella, built on the same noun; it calls damisela a doublet.^[1]

The usual reconstruction with ⟨-ella⟩ would make the Castilian word a loan from Catalan.^[2] Corominas argues that the lack of a diphthong in Castilian (no ⟨-iella⟩), together with the closed vowel of Old Occitan donzela and of Majorcan and Eastern Catalan, points to a base in ⟨-illa⟩, so that the Castilian word is native, as its frequency and popular character in the oldest texts confirm.^[2] The masculine doncel, by contrast, came through Catalan donzell.^[2][3] The same Vulgar Latin word is Portuguese donzela, Catalan donzella, Italian donzella and Old French damoisele, now French demoiselle.^[2][5][1] In Galicia, Asturias, León and Salamanca descendants of the word name the weasel, such as Galician donicela.^[6]

The Latin noun is the feminine of dominus (“master of a household”), which de Vaan traces to a Proto-Italic adjective meaning “of the house”.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first records are Berceo's Poema de Santa Oria and the Libro de Alexandre (1220–1250); in the Alexandre married women and donzellas look at themselves in mirrors.^[2][3][8] In Alfonso X's Lapidario it is a virgin: a stone is strongest under the figure of a donzella with her hair parted over one shoulder.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Already in Alfonso X's General Estoria (1280) Queen Esther takes two donzellas with her, maids who attend a lady, and the chess-like juego de donzellas is named in his book of games (1283).^[9] Covarrubias (1611) defined it as a young unmarried woman and, strictly, a virgin; he took it from Latin adolescentula and told the legend of the hundred noble maidens paid every year as tribute to the Moors.^[10] Autoridades (1732) has the virgin and the maid who serves close to the lady and does needlework, and preferred the derivation from domicela.^[11] The Academy added the fish (the rainbow wrasse) and the proverbs la doncella honesta, el hacer algo es su fiesta and la doncella y el azor, las espaldas hacia el sol in 1817.^[12]

In Andalusia, Colombia and Venezuela doncella is a whitlow, an inflammation of the finger, which Cuervo already noted was missing from the Academy's dictionary.^[4][13][14] In Puerto Rico it names several trees, and in Peru fishes.^[15][16]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – Berceo's Poema de Santa Oria and the Libro de Alexandre.^[2][3]
• 1256 – Alfonso X's Picatrix, the earliest record in a manuscript of its own time.^[8]
• 1280 – maids of Queen Esther in the General Estoria.^[9]
• 1283 – the juego de donzellas in Alfonso X's book of games.^[9]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin virgo and virguncula.^[17]
• 1541 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from adolescentula.^[10]
• 1732 – Autoridades has the lady's maid.^[11]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the fish and the proverbs.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A virgin; a maiden, a young unmarried woman.^[4][1][19]
2. A lady's maid, a female servant who attends the lady of the house or does household work other than cooking: La doncella preparó el vestido de la señora.^[4][1]
3. The rainbow wrasse, a small brightly coloured sea fish.^[4][1]
4. (Andalusia) A whitlow, an inflammation of a finger.^[4]

Word family

• doncellez
• doncellueca
• doncellona

Related words

• doncel
• damisela
• dueña
• doña
• Latin domina

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 529
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dueño
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. doncella
5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2339
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ 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. doncella
9. ^ 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. doncella
10. ^ 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. 691
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 336
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 335
13. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 230
14. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 615
15. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. doncella
16. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. doncella
17. ^ 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. doncella
18. ^ 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. doncella
19. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. doncella