esmerejón

Forms

esmerejón m (plural esmerejones)^[1] Old Spanish had esmerilón (13th-century Santander customs tariffs), esmerijón (the Moamín, 1250, and the Espéculo) and esmerejón (Juan Manuel); esmerjón is found in Vélez de Guevara.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Old French esmereillon (modern émerillon), adapted to Castilian; the French word is a derivative of esmeril, which is from Frankish *smiril.^{[2][4][5][3][6]} Wiktionary takes the French word further back, through Medieval Latin smerillus, to Proto-Germanic *smirilaz, of unknown origin.^[1] The Germanic name is that of German Schmerl, Old High German smerlo and Old Norse smyrill.^[2][4]

Corominas notes that the Old French derivative was already more common than its base in the 12th century, and that Old Occitan had a form in -on, so the Frankish base may already have been an extended form, related to the Old High German word.^[2] He rules out a Gothic source, because Gothic would have had another ending, and points out that hunting birds were imported, as the Santander tariffs show; the borrowing would then be early, made before the Castilian change of the palatal l was complete.^[2] Italian smerlo, Old Occitan esmirle and esmerla come from the Old High German form.^[2] The old derivation from Latin merula (“blackbird”), which the Academy gave in 1899 by way of Italian smeriglione, is unfounded according to Corominas, who suggests that the German name of a small fish was transferred to the bird for their smallness.^[2][7]

The same word is Portuguese esmerilhão, from Old French and recorded from the 15th century, and Catalan esmerenyó.^[8][9] In France the bird's name was given to a small piece of artillery in the early 16th century, and the shorter French form gave Spanish esmeril in the same sense.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DHLE's first record is the Moamín (1250), a falconry treatise: e otras aues que son dichas en arauigo çunuce son los esmerijones e los alcotanes “and other birds, called çunuce in Arabic, are the merlins and the hobbies”.^[3][10] The DCECH's oldest form, esmerilón, is in 13th-century customs tariffs of Santander.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The word belonged to falconry: the General Estoria (c. 1275) lists the esmerejón among the birds the law forbade as food, and Juan Manuel and López de Ayala's Libro de la caça de las aves (1386) name it among the birds of prey.^[11][3] Nebrija rendered it by Latin halietus and nisus.^[12] Covarrubias in 1611 tells the story of King Nisus, changed into this bird in Ovid's Metamorphoses.^[3] The Academy's definitions changed: in 1817 it identified the bird with the esparaván, in 1899 with the goshawk, and in 1956 it gave the modern description.^[3] The name of a small cannon is recorded too.^[5][13] In Mexico the word names a larger hawk, recorded from 1893.^[3]

Timeline

• 13th century – esmerilón in the customs tariffs of Santander.^[2][4]
• 1250 – esmerijones in the Moamín.^[3][10]
• c. 1275 – the form esmerejón in the first part of the General Estoria.^[3][11]
• c. 1330 – the BDELC's date for esmerejón, in Juan Manuel.^[4][2]
• 1548 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias tells the fable of Nisus.^[3]
• 1956 – the Academy gives the modern definition.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) The merlin (Falco columbarius), a small diurnal bird of prey of the same genus as the hobby (alcotán) and the kestrel (cernícalo), blue-grey above and pale with dark bars below, fairly common in Andalusia in winter.^[5][1][15]
2. (Mexico) A larger hawk of the family Accipitridae, grey above with a barred whitish belly.^[3]
3. (historical) An old piece of artillery of small calibre.^[5][15]

Related words

• esmeril
• French émerillon
• Portuguese esmerilhão

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 729
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. esmerejón
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esmerejón
5. ^ a b c d 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. esmerejón
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
7. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 421
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1408
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6195
10. ^ 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. esmerejón
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. esmerejón
12. ^ 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. esmerejón
13. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 212
14. ^ 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. esmerejón
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esmerejón