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gallo

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word gallo

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1140 Cantar de mio Cid More words from the 12th century
Inherited from
Latin gallus
Ultimate origin
Latin gallus
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin gallus
Spanish gallo
From the same root
Latin gallīna ← gallus

Pronunciation

  • /ˈɡaʝo/, [ˈɡa.ʝo], /ˈɡaʎo/[1]

Forms

gallo m (plural gallos, feminine gallina, feminine plural gallinas)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin gallus (“rooster”).[2][3][4][1] The hen, gallina, continues the Latin feminine gallīna, recorded in Spanish in a charter of 1050.[4][2]

The same Latin word is Portuguese galo, Galician galo, Catalan gall, Occitan gal, Old French jal and Italian gallo.[5][6][1]

The Latin word's origin is uncertain.[7] De Vaan finds a root Proto-Indo-European *glH- (“to call”) much the likeliest source, so that the cock would be “the caller”, with cognates such as Welsh galw (“to call”) and Old Norse kalla; but he notes formal difficulties and the possibility that the root is an onomatopoeia.[7] Wiktionary gives the root as *gelH-.[1] A naming after the Gauls is possible in theory, but nothing suggests that chickens were thought to come from Gaul.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140) has the word, and there, as in Berceo, the crowing of the cocks marks the hours of the night.[2][8] Old Spanish said a los gallos primeros and a los mediados gallos, and Berceo wrote of los monges que madrugan a los gallos primeros “the monks who rise at the first cockcrow”.[5][9] Alfonso X's prose still has al gallo and el primer gallo for the first hour of the morning.[10]

Semantic evolution

The bird lent its name to people and things: Autoridades in 1734 recorded a sea fish named for the spines raised on its back like a cock's crest, and, in the universities, the speaker who praised a candidate at his graduation.[11] By 1869 the Academy's dictionary also had the man who rules, or wants to rule, everything in a house, town or community.[12][13] Corominas notes a kind of tough grass called gallo in Lope, Terreros and modern Colombia, and the sense “boy” in Chile.[2]

The Americas have many senses of their own: a serenade in Mexico, a candidate favoured to win in Mexico, Nicaragua and Paraguay, an expert in Honduras and the Dominican Republic, and “man, guy” in Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Bolivia.[14][15] In Mexico the first conquistadors called the turkey a gallo de papada or gallo de la tierra.[16] In the Canaries a gallo is a bump on the head.[17]

Timeline

  • c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid measures the night by the crowing of the cocks.[2][8]
  • 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario describes a figure with a cock on its head.[10]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija defines it as the husband of the hens, Latin gallus.[18]
  • 1530 – the first records from the Americas, in Mexico.[19]
  • 1599 – the verb gallear appears, in the Guzmán de Alfarache.[2][3]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias describes the bird at length from Pliny.[20]
  • 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the fish and the university speaker.[11]
  • 1884 – the Academy gives an etymology for the first time, from Latin gallus.[13]

Meanings

Noun

  1. rooster, cock: the male of the domestic chicken; the female is the gallina.[4][1]
  2. (ichthyology) A name of several flat sea fish with a crest-like dorsal fin, such as the John Dory and the megrim.[4][21][1]
  3. In the card game monte, the two second cards the banker draws.[4]
  4. A pinwheel (molinete), the toy.[4]
  5. (colloquial) A strong, brave man; also an adjective.[4]
  6. (colloquial) A man who tries to dominate others by aggression or boasting, or who wants to rule everything.[4][21]
  7. (colloquial) A false, shrill note in singing or speaking; a voice crack: Al tenor se le escapó un gallo.[4][1]
  8. (colloquial) A gob of spit.[4]
  9. (architecture) The ridge beam of a roof; parhilera.[4][1]
  10. (boxing) The bantamweight class.[1]
  11. (Costa Rica) A corn tortilla filled with meat, beans or chopped vegetables.[4][1]
  12. (Mexico) A serenade (serenata).[14][1]
  13. (Chile, colloquial) A guy, a bloke.[1][2]

Word family

  • galladura
  • gallear
  • gallareta
  • engallarse
  • gallito
  • gallera
  • gallero
  • gallipavo

Usage notes

The feminine of gallo is gallina, a separate Latin word; the DLE treats them as one entry.[4][1] Set phrases include en menos que canta un gallo “in no time” and otro gallo cantaría “things would be different”.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 51
  3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gallo
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. gallo
  5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3664
  6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. gallo
  7. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. gallus
  8. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 292
  9. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. s.v. gallo
  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. gallo
  11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 13
  12. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 378
  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. 520
  14. ^ 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. gallo
  15. ^ Ramos y Duarte, Félix (1895), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Imprenta de Eduardo Dublán, p. 273
  16. ^ García Icazbalceta, Joaquín (1899), Vocabulario de mexicanismos comprobado con ejemplos y comparado con los de otros países hispano-americanos, México: La Europea, p. s.v. gallo
  17. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. gallo
  18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 356
  19. ^ 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. gallo
  20. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 885
  21. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gallo

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Gallo.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/gallo. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·