escudero

Forms

escudero m (plural escuderos, feminine escudera, feminine plural escuderas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin scūtārius (“shield-maker; shield-bearer”), a derivative of Latin scūtum (“shield”).^[2][1][3] It is also felt as escudo with the suffix -ero.^[1][4] In Latin the noun meant a maker of shields, and under the Empire its plural named the emperor's guard.^[5][6]

The same word is Portuguese escudeiro, Galician escudeiro, Catalan escuder, Occitan escudier and French écuyer;^[7][3] Meyer-Lübke considered the Italian scudiere borrowed from Occitan.^[7][3] Coromines finds the Catalan word already in a document of 1158.^[8]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *skoito-, and de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *skoi-to- (“piece of wood, sheath, shield”), with cognates in Old Irish scíath and Old Church Slavonic щитъ (štitŭ, “shield”).^[5][1] Wiktionary also reports a derivation from *(s)kewH- (“to cover”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to a charter of 1011 in Oelschläger's list, and then to the Cantar de mio Cid.^[9][10] In the Cid an escudero is a young man of good birth who serves a knight while preparing to be knighted himself.^[11] Alfonso X's Estoria de España tells that Pelayo had fled from Witiza, though he had been his escudero and carried his sword.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The word also named a man of known noble birth, an hidalgo, and Autoridades quotes the Conde Lucanor for this sense.^[4][2] Covarrubias in 1611 described the escuderos who escorted their lords in peacetime and waited in the antechamber, and remarked that by his day ladies made most use of them.^[13] Autoridades quotes Don Quixote, where a poor villager decides to go with the knight and serve as his escudero.^[4][14]

The Academy's dictionary of 1817 listed the senses that the DLE keeps: the page who carried the knight's shield, the man of noble birth, a lord's retainer, a maker of shields, a lady's attendant, and in hunting a young boar that goes with an old one.^[15][2] The DHLE dates the hunting sense to 1629 and records a sense “jack, the lowest court card” from 1825 to the early 20th century.^[16] Today the word is used mainly for the squire of a knight, and figuratively for a faithful helper.^[17]

Timeline

• 1011 – first record, in a charter.^[9][10]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses escudero for a knight's young attendant.^[9][11]
• 1211 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar, the earliest text in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[18]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin scutarius both for the maker and the bearer of shields.^[19][20]
• 1519 – first record in the Americas, in Panama.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the escuderos of lords and ladies.^[13]
• 1615 – first record of escuderil.^[10]
• 1629 – first record of the hunting sense “young boar”.^[16]
• 1825 – escudero as the name of a court card.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) A squire: a page or servant who carried a knight's shield (escudo).^[2][1]
2. (historical) A man who belonged by birth or kinship to a rank of the lesser nobility.^[2][1]
3. (historical) A retainer who attended a lord or person of rank.^[2][22]
4. (historical) A maker of shields.^[2][1]
5. (historical) A servant who accompanied a lady outside the house and waited in her antechamber.^[2]
6. (hunting) A young boar that goes about with an old one.^[2][16]

Adjective

1. (rare) Of or relating to a squire; escuderil.^[2]

Word family

• escudería
• escuderil
• escuderear

Related words

• escudo
• Latin scūtum
• Portuguese escudeiro
• French écuyer

Usage notes

Escudero de a pie was the name of a messenger boy in the royal household.^[2] Two proverbs recorded by the Academy in the 19th century are escudero pobre, taza de plata y olla de cobre, advising durable goods, and el escudero de Guadalajara, de lo que promete a la noche no hay nada a la mañana.^[23] Escudero is also a surname that began as an occupational name.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. escudero
3. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5999
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 577
5. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 725
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7759
8. ^ 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, 570
9. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 714
10. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. escudo
11. ^ a b Boggs, R. S.; Kasten, Lloyd; Keniston, Hayward; Richardson, H. B. (1946), Tentative Dictionary of Medieval Spanish, 2 vols., Chapel Hill, N.C., p. 234
12. ^ 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. escudero
13. ^ 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. 1, 775
14. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 489
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 382
16. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. escudero
17. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. escudero
18. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 349
20. ^ 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. escudero
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. escudero
22. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. escudero
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 328