dragón

Forms

dragón m (plural dragones, feminine dragona, feminine plural dragonas)^[1] The earliest Old Spanish forms are draco in Berceo, drago in the Alexandre and Juan Ruiz, and dagrón about 1350 in the Poema de Alfonso XI;^[1] dragón appears in the Primera Crónica General.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish dragon, inherited from Latin dracō, dracōnis (“serpent, dragon”), which is from Ancient Greek δράκων (drákōn, “serpent, dragon”).^[2][3][4][1] The Latin nominative gave drago, now the name of the dragon tree of the Canaries.^[2][1] The same Latin word is Portuguese dragão, Catalan drac (also dragó), French dragon, Italian dragone and Romanian drac.^[5][6][7]

Beekes takes the Greek word as probably related to δέρκομαι (dérkomai, “to look, see”), on the assumption that the dragon was named for its paralysing gaze.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos has the Latin-shaped draco.^[2] The form dragon is first found, according to the DHLE, before 1260 in the Escorial New Testament, for the dragon of the Apocalypse, the fallen angel who stands for evil.^[9] Alfonso X's Lapidario has a rider seated on a dragon with a lance in his hand, and also the constellation of the Dragon.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Medieval texts use the word for the fabulous winged serpent, for the devil, and for a large snake.^[10][9] About 1400 a Bible translation used it for a great sea creature, the whale, and in the 16th century Bartolomé de las Casas used it for large real reptiles.^[9] The DHLE dates other transferred senses: a luminous trail left by a falling meteor (1578), the snapdragon (1592), and a heavy piece of artillery (1612).^[9]

As the name of a soldier carried on horseback to the place of battle, who then fought on foot, dragón has been in Spanish since 1728 and came from France; according to Kurrelmeyer the name came from the soldiers' pistol, itself called after the dragon on its hammer.^[2][4] The Academy's 1884 dictionary also recorded a winged lizard, a white spot in horses' eyes, and the snapdragon.^[11] In Chile dragón is slang for bad breath after too much food or drink, and in Uruguay it once meant a suitor.^[12]

Timeline

• c. 1236 – Berceo writes draco.^[2]
• Before 1260 – dragon in the Escorial New Testament.^[9]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario names the dragon and the constellation.^[10]
• c. 1350 – the form dagrón in the Poema de Alfonso XI.^[2]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin dictionary renders draco as el dragon sierpe.^[13][9]
• 1568 – frightful dragons tan grandes como becerros are reported from Guatemala.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the sense “devil”.^[9]
• 1728 – first record of dragón for a mounted infantryman.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin and Greek.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dragon: a fabulous animal shaped like a huge reptile, with claws and wings, of great fierceness and greed.^[4][1]
2. (zoology) A small tree-dwelling lizard of the Philippines and tropical Asia, with folds of skin on its sides that help it glide.^[4]
3. (botany) The snapdragon, a garden plant with spikes of red or yellow flowers.^[4]
4. A white, opaque spot that sometimes forms in the pupils of horses and other animals.^[4]
5. (metallurgy) In reverberatory furnaces, the sloping opening through which more metal is fed while they burn.^[4]
6. A sailing boat of up to nine metres, used in racing.^[4]
7. (historical) A dragoon, a soldier who served on foot or on horseback in turn.^[4][1]
8. (heraldry) A dragon as a charge.^[1]

Word family

• dragonear
• dragontea

Related words

• drago
• draconiano
• endriago
• Latin draco

Usage notes

The feminine dragona is used for a female dragon.^[1][4] Dragón marino is the greater weever, a spiny fish.^[4]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 521
3. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. dragón
4. ^ 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. dragón
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. dragón
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2759
7. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 3, 195
8. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. dragón
10. ^ a b c 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. dragón
11. ^ 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. 401
12. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. dragón
13. ^ 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. dragón
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. drago