duna

Forms

duna f (plural dunas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Dutch duin (“dune”).^[2][3][4][1] Varén de Soto and the Diccionario de Autoridades say that it was taken during the wars in Flanders;^[2] Corominas thinks it may have come through French dune, which the Flemings often used to speak with the Spaniards.^[2] García de Diego derives it from the French word.^[5]

The French word is recorded from about 1195, borrowed from Old Dutch dūna.^[6][7] The Academy traces the Dutch word to Proto-Germanic *dūno- (“hill”).^[4] Its further origin may be Celtic: Corominas reports this as a possibility, and Orel takes the Germanic forms as borrowed from Gaulish *dūnom (“height, hill fort”), the word of the Celtic place names in ⟨-dunum⟩.^[2][8][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's Breve diccionario dates the word to 1592; in the DCECH his first record is Varén de Soto in 1643.^[3][2] The older Spanish word for a sand hill is médano, still much used in Argentina, Chile and elsewhere.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Terreros (1786) treated duna as a term of geography for the small heaps of sand that are dangerous at sea near the shore, marked on maps with dots, and for the masses of earth or stone that protect a coast; he notes that it was mostly used in the plural.^[9] Domínguez placed the dunes on the coasts of France, Scotland, Holland and Egypt.^[10] The Academy's 1884 dictionary, deriving the word from Flemish duyn, still defined it as a sand hill on or near the seashore; the modern definition includes the dunes of deserts, formed and moved by the wind.^[11][4]

Timeline

• 1592 – first record in Corominas's Breve diccionario.^[3]
• 1643 – Varén de Soto uses it, saying that it was taken in the wars of Flanders.^[2]
• 1786 – Terreros records it as a term of geography, mostly in the plural.^[9]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Flemish duyn.^[11]
• 1919 – first record from the Americas in Boyd-Bowman, in Bolivia.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dune: a hill of loose sand that the wind builds up and moves in deserts and on beaches; mostly in the plural.^[4][13][1]

Related words

• médano
• duneta
• French dune

Usage notes

Duna is mostly used in the plural, las dunas.^[4][9] Moliner gives médano as a synonym.^[13] Duneta, the highest deck of a ship's poop, is a separate borrowing, from French dunette, a diminutive of dune.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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, 535
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. duna
4. ^ 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. duna
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. duna
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. dune
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. duna
8. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 80
9. ^ a b c 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, 708
10. ^ 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. 648
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. 403
12. ^ 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. duna
13. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. duna