esqueleto

Forms

esqueleto m (plural esqueletos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Ancient Greek σκελετός (skeletós, “dried up; mummy; skeleton”), recorded from 1581, according to Corominas, Bénaben and Wiktionary.^[2][3][1] The DLE instead derives it from New Latin sceleton, the word of the sciences, from the Greek neuter σκελετόν (skeletón).^[4] The DTME calls it a reintroduction of the Greek word, recorded in Spanish from 1580.^[5]

The Greek adjective meant “dried up, withered”; used as a noun it meant “a dried body, a mummy”, and in Galen “a skeleton”.^[6] It is formed from σκέλλω (skéllō, “to dry up, parch”) with the adjectival suffix -τός (-tós).^[1][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to 1581.^[2] The earliest hit in the CDH is in a romance of Góngora (in a collection dated 1580–1627), which mockingly addresses a woman as doña Anotomía and mi doña Esqueleto.^[7] The anatomical sense is clear in the 1594 statutes of the University of Salamanca, which have the bones demonstrated on the skeleton of the schools.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In the 1590s the word was already used figuratively: Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola describes a starving figure as esqueleto, de seca i descarnada, and Juan de los Ángeles says that virtue in his day had only its framework or skeleton.^[7] Covarrubias in 1611 describes it as the frame of a body with all the flesh removed and the bones left in place, as Death is painted, and used by anatomists and surgeons.^[8] The Diccionario de Autoridades adds “a very thin person”, in the phrase estar hecho un esqueleto.^[9]

Later the word spread to any supporting framework, and in zoology to the hard parts of invertebrates, as in dermatoesqueleto and exoesqueleto.^[4][10] In the Americas it is recorded from 1683, in New Granada.^[11] Several countries use it for a printed form with blanks to be filled in by hand (Guatemala, Mexico, Colombia, Nicaragua), and for the outline of a speech or written work, a sense the Chilean Román already noted.^{[12][13][14][15]} In Colombia it is a sleeveless vest, in the Dominican Republic a tree, Euphorbia tirucalli, and in Puerto Rico a poisonous plant.^[15][16][17]

Timeline

• 1581 – first record, according to Corominas.^[2]
• 1594 – the Salamanca university statutes mention the skeleton of the schools used in anatomy.^[7]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it, with a Greek etymology.^[8]
• 1683 – first record from the Americas, in New Granada.^[11]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the sense “a very thin person”.^[9]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives a Greek etymology.^[18]
• 1892 – Batres records the Guatemalan sense “printed form”.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) A skeleton: the hard, jointed parts that give the body of an animal its shape and support and protect its soft parts: En el museo se exhibe el esqueleto de una ballena.^[4][1][10]
2. (zoology) An exoskeleton (dermatoesqueleto), or the internal skeleton of vertebrates.^[4]
3. A framework that holds something up: el esqueleto de un edificio.^[4][10][1]
4. (colloquial) A very thin person.^[4][9]
5. (botany) A dried plant.^[4]
6. (Colombia, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua) A printed form with blanks to be filled in by hand.^[4][13]
7. (Mexico, Central America, Ecuador, Peru) An outline or draft of a piece of writing.^[15][19]
8. (Nicaragua) A person's body.^[4][15]

Word family

• esquelético
• citoesqueleto
• dermatoesqueleto
• exoesqueleto

Related words

• osamenta
• Ancient Greek σκελετός (skeletós)

Usage notes

Mover el esqueleto “to move one's skeleton” is a colloquial phrase for dancing.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esqueleto
3. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. esqueleto
4. ^ 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. esqueleto
5. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. esqueleto
6. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. σκελετός
7. ^ 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. esqueleto
8. ^ 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, 798
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 616
10. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esqueleto
11. ^ 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. esqueleto
12. ^ a b Batres Jáuregui, Antonio (1892), Vicios del lenguaje y provincialismos de Guatemala, Guatemala: Encuadernación y Tipografía Nacional, p. 281
13. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 625
14. ^ 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. 301
15. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. esqueleto
16. ^ 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. esqueleto
17. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. esqueleto
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 462
19. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. esqueleto