etiqueta

Forms

etiqueta f (plural etiquetas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French étiquette (“label”), taken in the sense of the written protocol of court ceremonial.^[2][3][4][1] In French the word meant a label, especially the one fixed on the bags in which the papers of a lawsuit were kept (1387); Charles V extended it to the written protocol of court ceremonial, and Spanish took it in the middle of the 17th century.^[2][3] Autoridades says that the word came in with the other terms of the household of the House of Burgundy.^[5]

The French word, first Old French estiquette, is a derivative of estiquier (“to fix, attach”), also spelt estechier.^[6] Corominas takes the verb from Dutch stikken (“to fix”), the DHLF from Frankish *stikkjan (“to pierce”), a variant of *stikkan.^[2][6] Corominas also finds attractive Furetière's idea that the French word is a French pronunciation of the Latin formula ⟨est hic quaestio inter N et N⟩, written on the bag of each lawsuit.^[2]

Spanish passed the court sense on to Italian etichetta by about 1670, and to French as well.^[2] The sense “label” was taken from French again in the 19th century.^[3] The same French word gave English ticket.^[2][3] Spanish America took tiquete from the English word.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is a poem by Jerónimo de Cáncer y Velasco of 1646: advertid que anda errado en la cortes etiqueta “note that he goes wrong in courtly etiquette”.^[7] Corominas's first record is the Prince of Esquilache (died 1658), on the ceremonial of the Burgundian court: deste Jardín de Borgoña / la etiqueta por escrito “the written etiquette of this Garden of Burgundy”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades defined it as the ceremonial of the styles and customs kept in the royal houses.^[5] Terreros described the paper of instructions for palace ceremonies and, by likeness, the courtesies people show one another.^[8] Sor Juana already joked that Mexico too had its share of etiqueta.^[7] The Academy extended the sense to solemn public acts and to social usage as opposed to familiarity by 1869.^[9]

Gaspar y Roig recorded the commercial sense, a label on bottles and goods, in 1853.^[10] Baralt condemned this gallicism in 1855, and the Academy still left it out in 1899.^[11][2] Purists in the Americas recommended marbete or rótulo instead, but Membreño noted that the label sense was general in Spanish America.^[12] The DLE now has the label, the price tag, the hashtag of social networks and a stereotyped label put on a person.^[4]

Timeline

• 1387 – the French word is recorded as a label for lawsuit bags.^[2][3]
• 1646 – first record, in a poem by Cáncer y Velasco.^[7]
• before 1658 – the Prince of Esquilache uses it for the Burgundian court ceremonial.^[2]
• c. 1670 – the word has passed from Spain into Italian.^[2]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades defines the court ceremonial.^[5]
• 1757 – first record in the Americas, in Bogotá.^[13]
• 1853 – Gaspar y Roig records the sense “label”.^[10]
• 1855 – Baralt condemns the sense “label” as a gallicism.^[11][2]
• 1917 – Alemany records the sense “label”, marked as a gallicism.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. etiquette, the ceremonial of customs to be kept at solemn public acts.^[4][1]
2. Formality in the way private people treat each other, as opposed to familiarity.^[4]
3. A label or tag: a piece of paper, card or the like put on an object or goods to identify, price or classify it: Mira el precio en la etiqueta.^[4][1]
4. (social media) A hashtag.^[4][1]
5. A stereotyped, simplifying label for someone.^[4]

Word family

• etiquetar

Related words

• tiquete
• French étiquette
• English ticket

Usage notes

The phrase de etiqueta means “formal, for solemn occasions”, also of dress (traje de etiqueta); media etiqueta is semi-formal men's wear.^[4][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 819
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. etiqueta
4. ^ 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. etiqueta
5. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 662
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. étiquette
7. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. etiqueta
8. ^ 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, 125
9. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 344
10. ^ a b Gaspar y Roig (eds.) (1853–1855), Biblioteca ilustrada de Gaspar y Roig: Diccionario enciclopédico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta y Librería de Gaspar y Roig, p. 1, 962
11. ^ a b Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 287
12. ^ Membreño, Alberto (1897), Hondureñismos: vocabulario de los provincialismos de Honduras, 2nd ed., Tegucigalpa: Tipografía Nacional, p. 76
13. ^ 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. etiqueta
14. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 736