escoba

Forms

escoba f (plural escobas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish escoba, inherited from Latin scōpa (“broom”), whose plural originally meant “twigs, thin branches”, and so a broom made of them.^{[2][3][4][1][5][6]} The same word is Portuguese escova “brush”, Asturian escoa, Occitan escoba, Old French escouve, Italian scopa and Sardinian iscòba.^[7][8] In northern France the word gave way entirely to the ancestor of French balai, but its derivative survives in écouvillon.^[7][9]

Wiktionary derives the Latin noun from Proto-Italic *skōpā and Proto-Indo-European *skeh₂p- (“to prop”), and relates it to Ancient Greek σκήπτω (skḗptō, “to prop up”) and to the English word shaft.^[1] Gómez de Silva instead derives it from *skep- (“to cut, scrape”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record is in the Moamín (1250, in a copy of the second half of the 13th century), which uses escobas for the shrub: tomen de las escobas uerdes que les dizen migiriegas, e písenlas “let them take the green brooms they call migiriegas and crush them”.^[11][12] The sense “broom” appears in the Gospel of St Matthew of about 1260, where a house is found alimpiada con escobas “swept clean with brooms”.^[11] Corominas's first record is in the glossaries of the Escorial and Toledo of about 1400, but he notes the collective escobar from 1135.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The plant sense, a shrub like the retama from which brooms are made, is found in a 15th-century minstrel and survives in the Val d'Aran, Pallars, the Bierzo and dialects of Portugal and the Alps.^[2] The Diccionario de Autoridades describes brooms of palm, algarabía and other twigs, and quotes a price list of 1680 that fixes 32 maravedís for a sewn palm broom with its handle; it calls the shrub a word used in Castile.^[13] The Academy's dictionaries of the 19th century record the proverbs escoba desatada, persona desalmada and cuando nace la escoba, nace el asno que la roya.^[14][15]

The modern dictionaries add the card game escoba, in which the players try to make fifteen points.^[4][16] In Central America and the Antilles the word names several wild plants of the genera Sida, Abutilon and others, and in Chile escoba nueva is a newcomer to an office who performs it strictly.^[17][18][19]

Timeline

• 960 – the Latinised collective escopare in a charter.^[2][3]
• c. 1100 – the Mozarabic diminutive eikopéla in an anonymous botanist.^[2]
• 1135 – the collective escobar.^[2][3]
• 1250 – the Moamín, for the shrub.^[11][12]
• c. 1260 – the Gospel of St Matthew, for the broom.^[11]
• c. 1400 – the glossaries of the Escorial and Toledo, Corominas's first record.^[2]
• 1490 – the derivative escobajo.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives escoba para barrer with Latin scopae.^[20]
• 1512 – first record from the Americas: a dozen palm brooms in Puerto Rico.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin scopa.^[22]
• 1832 – escobillón, modelled on the French word.^[3]
• 1899 – the Academy describes the shrub as a leguminous plant.^[23]

Meanings

Noun

1. A broom: a bundle of flexible twigs or other filaments, usually fixed to the end of a long handle, for sweeping the floor: Barrió el patio con una escoba vieja.^[4][1]
2. (botany) Spanish broom (retama), a leguminous shrub used for making brooms.^[4][16][1]
3. A card game for two or four players in which the aim is to make fifteen points; also the play that takes all the cards on the table.^[4][16]
4. (Central America, Antilles) Any of several wild plants of the genera Sida, Abutilon and others.^[17][18]

Word family

• escobajo
• escobilla
• escobar
• escobazo
• escobero
• escobillar
• escobón

Related words

• escobillón
• Portuguese escova
• Latin scopa

Usage notes

Coche escoba is the car that follows a cycle race to pick up riders who drop out.^[5] No vender una escoba means to fail completely in an undertaking.^[24]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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, 697
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. escoba
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. escoba
5. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. escoba
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5981
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. escoba
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. escoba
12. ^ a b 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. escoba
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 563
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 379
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 312
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. escoba
17. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 187
18. ^ 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. escoba
19. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 279
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 348
21. ^ 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. escoba
22. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 766
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 415
24. ^ León, Víctor (1980), Diccionario de argot español y lenguaje popular, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, p. s.v. escoba