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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word filo

filo1 edge

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1250 Moamín, Libro de los animales que cazan
Inherited from
Latin filum via Old Spanish
Ultimate origin
Latin fīlum
Etymology tree of filo1
inherited borrowed derived
Latin fīlum
French fil
Italian filo
Romanian fir
Spanish filo
Spanish hilo
From the same root · filo1
Latin fīlāmentum ← fīlum
Latin fīlō ← fīlum
Romanian înfira ← fīlum
Italian fila ← filo
Spanish hilar ← hilo

Pronunciation

  • /ˈfilo/, [ˈfi.lo][1]

Forms

filo m (plural filos)[1]

Etymology

The word for the edge is inherited from Old Spanish filo, inherited from Latin fīlum (“thread”).[2][1][3] It is a doublet of hilo, the regular outcome of the same Latin word, which lost the initial /f/.[4][1][5][3] Corominas finds that, for a reason hard to pin down, the forms with ⟨f⟩ stayed more general in the transferred sense of the sharp edge of a cutting tool, a sense unknown in Latin but common to all the western Romance languages, and that the language used this to keep the edge apart from the thread.[4] In the Bierzo it is the other way round: the form with ⟨h⟩ is the edge and the form with ⟨f⟩ the sewing thread.[6]

The Latin word is also Portuguese fio, Catalan fil, French fil and Italian filo.[7] De Vaan traces the Latin noun to Proto-Italic *fīslo- and Proto-Indo-European *gʷʰiH-(s-)lo- (“sinew, sinew thread”), with cognates such as Lithuanian gysla (“vein, sinew”) and Proto-Slavic *žila (“vein”).[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Old Spanish filo was first the thread itself: the Libro de los animales que cazan (1250) advises sewing a wound con filo de algodón, ca el filo del lino romperlos yé aýna “with cotton thread, for linen thread would soon break them”.[9] Alfonso X's astronomical prose (1277) uses filos for the lines that divide the astrolabe into equal halves.[10]

Semantic evolution

The sense “edge” is first found in Alonso de Palencia's vocabulary (1490), and Nebrija gives filo de cuchillo with Latin acies ferri; yet Robert de Nola still wrote hilo de la navaja in 1525.[4][11] Autoridades (1732) marks filo “thread” as obsolete and lists the senses “balance, equality”, “cutting edge” and “sharpening”, with the phrase dar un filo.[12] The 1884 dictionary derived it from hilo and added the nautical filo del viento, the line the wind follows.[13]

Puerto Rico had puñales de dos filos in 1512.[14] In Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela filo is “hunger”; in Argentina a casual love affair or the person one has it with; in Chile the end of a relationship; in Cuba and Puerto Rico the crease ironed into trousers; in Peru a ridge between valleys.[15] Corominas notes the Argentine sense “crest line of a mountain”, and the Canarian historical dictionary records filo “mountain ridge” from 1685.[4][16]

Timeline

  • 1250 – filo de algodón “cotton thread” in the Libro de los animales que cazan.[9]
  • 1277 – cerco de los filos in Alfonso X's astronomical works.[10]
  • 1490 – Alonso de Palencia has the sense “cutting edge”.[4]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija: filo de cuchillo.[11]
  • 1512 – puñales de dos filos in Puerto Rico.[14]
  • 1732 – Autoridades marks the sense “thread” as obsolete.[12]
  • 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives filo from hilo.[13]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The sharp edge of a cutting tool or weapon: Pasó el pulgar por el filo del hacha.[2][17][1]
  2. A point or line that divides something into two equal parts.[2][10]
  3. (Argentina) A person with whom one has a passing love affair; the affair itself.[2][15]
  4. (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico) The crease ironed into trousers.[2][15]
  5. (colloquial, El Salvador and much of Latin America) hunger.[2][15][1]
  6. (obsolete) Thread (hilo).[2][12]

Word family

  • afilar
  • filoso
  • contrafilo
  • refilón

filo2 phylum

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
Borrowed from
Latin phylum
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek φῦλον

Pronunciation

  • /ˈfilo/, [ˈfi.lo][1]

Forms

filo m (plural filos)[1]

Etymology

The word for the taxonomic rank is borrowed from New Latin phylum, from Ancient Greek φῦλον (phûlon, “race, tribe”).[1] The DLE, Moliner and Vox derive it directly from the Greek word.[2][17][3] The Greek noun is a variant of φυλή (phūlḗ, “tribe”) and is related to φύω (phúō, “to beget, bring forth”).[1][18]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (biology) A phylum: a basic rank of biological classification, below the kingdom and above the class, grouping organisms of common descent built on the same plan, such as the molluscs or the chordates.[2][17][1]

Usage notes

In Chilean colloquial speech filo is also an interjection, “never mind, whatever, I don't care”.[1][19] Among the set phrases are al filo de “just before or after” (al filo de las doce), arma de doble filo or de dos filos “double-edged weapon”, and por filo “exactly, on the dot”.[2][17] Moliner gives filum as a synonym of the biological term.[17]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. filo
  3. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. filo
  4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 361
  5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 308
  6. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. filo
  7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3306
  8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  9. ^ 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. filo
  10. ^ a b c 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. filo
  11. ^ 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. filo
  12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 753
  13. ^ 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. 497
  14. ^ 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. filo
  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. filo
  16. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. filo
  17. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. filo
  18. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
  19. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. filo

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Filo.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/filo. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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