galán

Forms

galán (feminine galana, masculine plural galanes, feminine plural galanas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French galant, the present participle of Old French galer (“to enjoy oneself, go merrymaking”), first meaning “merry”, then “bold, enterprising” and later “amorous, courtly”.^[2][3][4][1] The French verb is of uncertain origin: Corominas suggests Frankish *wallan (“to boil, bubble, be agitated”), while the DHLF and Gómez de Silva start from a Gallo-Romance verb built on *wala (“well”).^[2][5][6] The DHLF notes that Guiraud found a verb from an adverb strange and preferred a Germanic verb meaning “to rush, bubble”.^[5] Echegaray's derivation from an Arabic word for “young man” belongs to the history of scholarship.^[7]

Spanish first used the word as a noun, or as an adjective with one ending, as Cervantes and Góngora still did.^[2] Taking it for a shortened form like buen beside bueno (compare fulán beside fulano), speakers then made the adjective galano, and the older form came to be used mainly as a noun.^[2][3] galante has the same origin but appears later, at first with the same sense.^[2][3][1] From Spanish the word passed to Italian, where Aretino and Cecchi use it in Spanish-Italian phrases.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest certain records are in 15th-century songbook poetry: Gómez Carrillo de Acimán asks a lady's admirer how, siendo vos galán onrado “being an honourable gallant”, he could be pleased by so small a thing, and Mendo Chamiso praises a man as más galán que Leonel.^[8] Corominas dates the word to the mid-15th century, in Mendoza's poem in the Cancionero de Stúñiga, and to Jorge Manrique's Coplas (1476).^[2][3] The earlier hits of the CDH are other words: a king called Galan and the swordsmith Galán of the epic, and a foreign word for milk in Clavijo.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija glossed galán with Latin elegans and lautus, and Pedro Mártir de Anghiera wrote at the end of the 15th century that the Spanish called elegant people galanos.^[2][9] The sense “lover, suitor” grew mainly from the 17th century; in the theatre the galán became the young male lead, and the Academy defined in 1899 the actor who plays the chief serious roles other than the old man.^[3][10] The name galán de noche went to a clothes stand for the bedroom and, with galán de día, to tropical American shrubs of the genus Cestrum with scented white flowers.^[4][11][12]

In the Americas the word appears from 1556 in Puebla, in praise of finely worked sword belts.^[13] Batres noted that Guatemalans say galán where Spaniards say guapo.^[12][14] In Mexico and Central America it is also an adverb meaning “well, fine” or “in great quantity”, and in Tabasco galán galán told of something that went smoothly.^[14][1][12]

Timeline

• 1400–1440 – Gómez Carrillo de Acimán and Mendo Chamiso use galán in poems copied about 1439.^[8]
• mid-15th century – Mendoza's poem in the Cancionero de Stúñiga;^[9] galana in Juan de Tapia.^[2]
• 1476 – Jorge Manrique's Coplas.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: galán, Latin elegans, lautus.^[9]
• 1556 – the first record from the Americas, in Puebla.^[13]
• 17th century – the sense “lover, suitor” becomes common.^[2][3]
• 1899 – the Academy defines the leading actor's role.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. galano: elegant, well dressed, handsome.^[4][11]
2. (Mexico) Of a man, attractive.^[14]
3. (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic) Of a person or thing, pretty.^[14]
4. (colloquial, Mexico, El Salvador) Of a situation, nice, enviable, free of worries.^[1]

Noun

1. A good-looking, well-built man who carries himself with grace.^[4]
2. A man who courts a woman; a suitor or beau: Su galán la esperaba en la puerta.^[4][1]
3. (theatre, film) The leading man, a young actor who plays the main romantic roles.^[4][1]
4. (in galán de noche) A valet stand for a man's clothes; also several American shrubs of the genus Cestrum whose flowers are scented at night.^[4]

Adverb

1. (colloquial, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador) Well, fine.^[14]
2. (Honduras) Perfectly, easily.^[14]
3. (colloquial, Mexico, El Salvador) Copiously, in great quantity.^[1]

Word family

• galanura
• galano
• galancete
• galanía

Related words

• galante
• gala
• French galant

Usage notes

Set phrases include galán de noche and galán de día (plants), and Moliner's más galán que Mingo “all dressed up”.^[4][11] In Salamanca galán is a coaxing word to children, and the plural galanes means toys.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gala
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gala
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. galán
5. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. galant
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 323
7. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 479
8. ^ 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. galán
9. ^ a b c 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. galán
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 480
11. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. galán
12. ^ a b c Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 543
13. ^ 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. galán
14. ^ a b c d e f Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. galán
15. ^ 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. galán