esturión

Forms

esturión m (plural esturiones)^[1] Terreros reports esturjón from Sobrino's dictionary, and Moliner lists asturión among its synonyms.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin sturio (“sturgeon”), as the DLE, the BDELC and Wiktionary agree.^[4][5][1] The Latin word, also spelt sturgio, is recorded from the 9th century.^[6][7] It is a borrowing from Germanic: the BDELC names Old High German sturio (modern German Stör).^[5] According to Wiktionary it is Frankish *sturjō, from Proto-Germanic *sturjô.^[1] Köbler lists its Germanic relatives, Old English styria and Old Norse styrja, and calls the origin unknown.^[8] Wiktionary mentions a possible link with a Balto-Slavic word for the sturgeon, through a non-Indo-European substrate.^[1]

The same Medieval Latin word is Italian storione, French esturgeon, Old Occitan esturjon and Catalan esturió (1262).^[9][10] The English word sturgeon is a cognate.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH, in Pero Tafur's travels of about 1457, is the name of an inn, un meson que dizen el Esturion.^[11] DICCA-XV dates the first record of the fish to 1498, and Corominas to 1525.^[12][5] Ruperto de Nola's cookery book glosses it que es sollo, explaining it with the native name of the fish.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades described it as a very tasty fish whose scales point towards the head and which always swims against the current, and called the word a borrowing from Latin.^[13] Terreros gave French, Latin and Italian equivalents and noted sollo and siluro as other Spanish names.^[2] In José Nicolás de Azara's letters of 1768–1769 sturgeon is a luxury of the cardinals' tables.^[11] From the late 19th century texts name it as the source of fish glue and caviar.^[11] The DLE now describes it as a large sea fish that swims up rivers to spawn, whose roe makes caviar.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1457 – Pero Tafur stays at an inn called el Esturion.^[11]
• 1498 – first record of the fish in DICCA-XV.^[12]
• 1525 – Corominas's date of first record.^[5][14]
• 1529 – Ruperto de Nola's cookery book explains it as sollo.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology “from Latin sturio”.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sturgeon: a large fish of the genus Acipenser, grey with black spots, with rows of bony plates along the body and a cartilaginous skeleton, which swims up rivers to spawn; its roe is made into caviar.^[4][1][3]

Related words

• sollo
• caviar
• English sturgeon
• French esturgeon

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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, 124
3. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esturión
4. ^ a b c 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. esturión
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. esturión
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. esturgeon
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. sturio
8. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling, p. s.v. *sturjō-
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8336
10. ^ 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, 814
11. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. esturión
12. ^ a b 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. esturión
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 660
14. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 737
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 473