esmalte

Forms

esmalte m (plural esmaltes)^[1] The Aragonese customs tariffs of the 13th century and a document of Alfonso X of 1278 have the plural esmaltes.^[2]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Old Catalan esmalt, perhaps borrowed from Old Occitan esmalt, from Frankish *smalt (“enamel”).^[3][4] Corominas points out that the Germanic root is not recorded in Gothic, while the Franks were known as makers of pottery, so a native Gothic loan in Castilian and Portuguese is unlikely; he follows Meyer-Lübke and Gamillscheg in taking the word from Catalan, or perhaps Occitan, and Germà Colón argues for Catalan rather than Occitan.^[3] The Academy names only Old Occitan, as a possibility, and Wiktionary likewise gives the Occitan form, with Early Medieval Latin smaltum before the Frankish word.^[5][1] The Catalan form is recorded in 1306, according to the BDELC.^[4]

Corominas notes that Catalan ⟨esmalt⟩ is abundant in medieval texts, that the usual Occitan form is esmaut, and that French had Old French esmal by the 12th century, losing the /t/ very early.^[3] The Medieval Latin word is documented from 913, and Niermeyer also lists the spellings esmaltum and smaldum.^[1][6] Terreros gave the Italian equivalent as smalto in 1787.^[7]

The Frankish noun is cognate with German Schmelz (“enamel”) and comes from a Germanic verb Proto-Germanic *smaltjan (“to smelt, melt”), whose descendants include schmelzen (“to melt”).^[3][4][8] Gómez de Silva cites Old High German smelzan (“to melt”) and traces the root further to the root Proto-Indo-European *smeld-, a variant of *mel- (“soft”).^[9]

Older views: Covarrubias in 1611 suspected the name was northern, perhaps German, because the art had come from there, and Autoridades repeated this, adding a possible Greek source; the Academy's dictionary of 1884 derived it from the German verb.^[10][11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEMel's earliest primary record is esmaltes in a document of Alfonso X of 1278.^[2] The CDH's first hit is a toll list of Zaragoza of 1291, which charges three dineros on a load of enamel: De roua de esmalte, III dineros.^[13] In 1338 the Cortes of Burgos forbid clothes trimmed with esmaltes, enamelled ornaments.^[13] Corominas's first records are the Castigos de don Sancho and the Cortes of 1348, both of the 14th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

From the start the word named both the vitreous coating fused onto metal and the enamelled pieces themselves: a contract of 1380 orders gold for the esmaltes of a cross.^[13] Poets of the late 14th and 15th centuries used it figuratively for a jewel or ornament of virtue (flor d'España, espejo e esmalte) and in heraldry for the tinctures of a coat of arms.^[13] Nebrija rendered it with Latin emblema, an inlaid ornament, and gave sinzel as a synonym.^[14][15]

Autoridades described it as a work in several colours, usually on gold, and added a sense in painting, a blue colour made from ground enamel.^[11] The Academy's 1817 edition had the heraldic sense, and Domínguez in 1846 recorded the outer covering of the teeth, which the Academy added as a zoological sense by 1884.^[16][17][12] The current dictionary adds nail varnish, esmalte de uñas.^[5]

Timeline

• 1278 – esmaltes in a document of Alfonso X.^[2]
• 1291 – the Zaragoza toll list taxes loads of enamel.^[13]
• 1306 – the Catalan form, the probable source, is recorded.^[4]
• 1348 – the Cortes of that year use it, one of Corominas's first records.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin emblema as its equivalent.^[14]
• 1576 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico, for the lustre inside shells.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias suspects a northern, German origin.^[10]
• 1846 – Domínguez records the enamel of the teeth.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. enamel, glaze: a glassy coating fused by heat onto porcelain, earthenware, metal and other materials.^[5][1]
2. An object coated or decorated with enamel; enamel work done on metal.^[5]
3. (figurative) Lustre, splendour, adornment.^[5]
4. nail polish, short for esmalte de uñas.^[5][1]
5. (anatomy) The very hard substance that covers the dentine of the crown of the teeth in vertebrates: El cepillado fuerte desgasta el esmalte.^[5][19]
6. (heraldry) Any of the metals or colours of heraldry, a tincture.^[5][1]

Word family

• esmaltar
• quitaesmalte

Related words

• Old Occitan esmalt
• Italian smalto

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. esmalte
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 728
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esmalte
5. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. esmalte
6. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. smaltum
7. ^ 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. 2, 91
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. esmalte
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 277
10. ^ 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. 782
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 585
12. ^ 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. 455
13. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. esmalte
14. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 349
15. ^ 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. esmalte
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 384
17. ^ a b 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. 740
18. ^ 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. esmalte
19. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. esmalte