flojo

Forms

flojo (feminine floja, masculine plural flojos, feminine plural flojas)^[1] Old and classical Spanish wrote floxo, the spelling still used by Covarrubias in 1611 and the Diccionario de Autoridades in 1732.^[2][3][4] The Leonese of Babia has fluexio.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish floxo, inherited from Latin fluxus (“flowing; loose, slack, weak”), properly the past participle of fluō (“to flow”).^[2][6][7][1] It is a doublet of the learned flujo.^[1]

Corominas explains the kept fl- by the moral sense of the word, which let the pronunciation of the educated prevail, as in flor and flaco.^[2] The Spanish and Portuguese forms suppose a short /u/ in the Latin word, although some Latin dictionaries make it long.^[2][8]

The word survives only in the Iberian languages: Portuguese frouxo (Old Portuguese froixo) and Catalan fluix.^[8][9] From Spanish come Gascon floche, French floche, said only of silk, and Italian floscio.^[2][1] Corominas therefore rejects the view of Gröber, Schuchardt and Meyer-Lübke, who took the Spanish adjective from the French word and that from Latin floccus (“tuft of wool”).^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora (manuscript A), and the word appears again in Juan Ruiz.^[2][6] The Moamín says that falcons come out of the moult floxas “weak”, and Alfonso X's Lapidario has a stone that tightens places that are floxos “slack”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija separates floxa cosa en el cuerpo, Latin laxus and fluxus, from floxo en el ánimo.^[2] Covarrubias (1611) defines it as what gives way under a load, what is badly tied, and the man who tires with little work.^[3] He also proposed three etymologies: Latin flocus, flacceo “to droop”, or fluo.^[3] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1732) gives “soft, yielding, loosely tied” and “lazy, negligent”.^[4] The Academy's 1899 edition derived it from Latin flaccidus, and later editions corrected this to fluxus.^[11][12]

In the Americas, and especially in Argentina, flojo became a synonym of “lazy” and of “cowardly”, senses already present in some Spanish uses.^[2] In Cuba it also means a man without firm convictions and, as a noun, a homosexual man, and in Central America and Puerto Rico a person with diarrhoea.^[7][13]

Timeline

• late 12th century – Guillem de Berguedà has the Catalan cognate, in Occitan spelling.^[8]
• c. 1215–1220 – DEMel cites a glossary of the Vida de Santa María Egipciaca.^[14]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora, the first record for Corominas.^[2][6]
• 1250–1300 – the Moamín uses floxo of moulting falcons.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija distinguishes slack things from slack minds.^[2]
• 1571 – the first record of the American sense, in Alonso de Molina's Spanish–Nahuatl vocabulary.^[15]
• 1581 – Italian floscio appears in a letter from Lisbon.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias proposes three Latin etymologies, and French floche is first recorded.^[3][2]
• 1732 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the sense “lazy”.^[4]
• 1899 – the Academy derives it from Latin flaccidus.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. loose, slack: badly tied, not tight or taut: Llevas el cordón del zapato flojo.^[7][1]
2. weak, lacking strength, activity or quality: Fue un examen bastante flojo.^[7][16]
3. lazy, negligent, slow at work; also a noun.^[7][1]
4. Timid, cowardly.^[7]
5. (phonetics) Lax (laxo), articulated with little tension.^[7]
6. (Cuba, colloquial) Of a person: without firm convictions.^[7]

Noun

1. (Cuba, colloquial) A homosexual man.^[7][13]

Word family

• flojedad
• flojera
• aflojar
• flojear

Related words

• fluir
• flujo
• Latin fluxus
• Portuguese frouxo
• Catalan fluix

Usage notes

The DLE lists the phrases boca floja, cuerda floja and seda floja, and Wiktionary also en la cuerda floja.^[7][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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, 916
3. ^ a b c d Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 857
4. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 3, 770
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. fluxus
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. flojo
7. ^ 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. flojo
8. ^ a b c 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. 4, 55
9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1618
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. flojo
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 464
12. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. flojo
13. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. flojo
14. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. flojo
15. ^ Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. flojo
16. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. flojo