esclavo

Forms

esclavo m (plural esclavos, feminine esclava, feminine plural esclavas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin sclavus (“slave”), which is from Byzantine Greek σκλάβος (sklábos, “Slav; slave”).^[2][1] Corominas thinks the word reached Castilian indirectly, most likely through Catalan esclau, which is already common in the Middle Ages: the Catalans brought many Slavic and Circassian slaves from the Byzantine Empire.^[3][4] In Catalan itself it may have come from the French of the Crusaders rather than straight from Greek.^[3] Wiktionary also allows a borrowing straight from Greek, and names eslavo as a doublet.^[1]

The Greek word is a back-formation from σκλαβηνός (sklabēnós), whose ending was taken for an adjective suffix.^[3][2] That form comes from Proto-Slavic *slověninъ, the name the Slavic peoples gave themselves.^[1][2] Σκλάβος is found in Greek from the 6th century and takes the sense “slave” by the 8th, because so many Slavs were sold in the slave trade of the medieval East.^[3] Bénaben ties the change to the many Slavs enslaved by Germanic peoples and the Byzantines, in the Balkans above all.^[5]

The same Medieval Latin word gave French esclave and Italian schiavo.^[6][1] A northern Italian form of the Italian word, used as a polite formula meaning “your servant”, became the Argentine farewell chau.^[3][4] Covarrubias, in 1611, explained the word from the letters S and I branded on the cheeks of slaves, standing for Latin “without rights”, with the I looking like a nail, clavo.^[7] Autoridades repeated this beside derivations from the Slavs or a Hebrew word.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH's first records are the feminine esclava in a 15th-century Spanish Bible translation (Genesis 16:1), the Celestina (c. 1490) and Alonso de Palencia's serva, esclava o guarda (1490), and the masculine esclavo “serf, slave” in Nebrija.^[3] The DEMel lists an earlier esclauos in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (1200–1250), beside esclauones “Slavs”.^[9] In Medieval Latin the word already meant a captive: Matthew Paris, in 1252, speaks of Christian captives “whom we commonly call esclavos”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word named a person owned by another and without freedom.^[3][10] In 1611 Covarrubias glossed it as a servant or captive.^[7] Autoridades added the metaphorical slave of one's own passions, with Quevedo's lines on Nero, and the members of religious brotherhoods called esclavitudes, such as the Esclavos del Santísimo Sacramento.^[8] The sense “devoted, in love” was in the Academy's dictionary by 1843, with the old phrase esclavo ladino, a slave who had served more than a year.^[11]

The first records from the Americas are lists of slaves in Puerto Rico in 1512–1513, and in 1516 Santo Domingo had “esclavos negros, caribes i lucayos”.^[12] In the 19th century Gaspar y Roig had a phrase entry on the trade in slaves from Africa.^[13] Today the feminine esclava also names a plain bracelet that does not open, and in Central America and Uruguay other kinds of bracelet.^[2] In the Dominican Republic esclavo is a gambler who loses his money and borrows to go on playing.^[14]

Timeline

• 1400s – esclava in a Spanish Bible translation, the first record in the DCECH.^[3][4]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia glosses Latin serva as esclava.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records esclavo “serf”.^[3]
• 1512 – the first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[12]
• 1604 – first record of the derivative esclavitud.^[4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the word from the brand S and a nail.^[7]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records the sense “member of a religious brotherhood” and the metaphorical sense.^[8]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “from Latin sclavus, Slav”.^[15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Without freedom because under the power of another person; more often a noun, a slave.^[2][1]
2. Wholly bound to a duty, passion, habit or vice: Vive esclavo del teléfono.^[2][16]
3. Devoted, obedient, deeply in love.^[2]
4. Of an activity: demanding a great deal of work and attention.^[2]

Noun

1. A member of a religious brotherhood of the kind called esclavitud.^[2][8]
2. (feminine) A plain bracelet that does not open.^[2]
3. (feminine, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua) A large bracelet that opens;^[2] (Uruguay) a rigid bracelet without a clasp, which may carry charms.^[2]

Word family

• esclavitud
• esclavista
• esclavizar

Related words

• eslavo
• esclavina
• eslabón
• chau
• Catalan esclau

Usage notes

Ser alguien un esclavo means to work hard and always be busy with one's house or job.^[2][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. esclavo
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 696
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esclavo
5. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. esclavo
6. ^ a b du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. sclavus
7. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 765
8. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 563
9. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. esclavo
10. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 135
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 312
12. ^ 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. esclavo
13. ^ Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 907
14. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. esclavo
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 449
16. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esclavo