garfio

Forms

garfio m (plural garfios)^[1] Old Spanish had grafio beside garfio, and the diminutive garfiello.^[2][3] Aragonese has grafia for a clamp that holds walls together, and La Rioja garrio “harpoon, hook”.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish grafio, inherited from Latin graphium (“stylus for writing on wax tablets”).^[3][4][2][1] The Latin word was borrowed from Ancient Greek γραφεῖον (grapheîon, “pencil; graving tool”), from γράφω (gráphō, “to write”).^[1][5]

Corominas explains both the form and the sense by a crossing with the Old Spanish noun garfa, which meant “claw” and also “handful”: under its influence the Latin word moved its ⟨r⟩ into the first syllable (⟨grafio⟩ > ⟨garfio⟩) and came to mean a strong hook.^[3][4][2] He takes the noun from Arabic غرفة (ġarfa, “handful”), from a root meaning “to scoop up water; to snatch, grasp”.^[3][4] The DLE gives the same account.^[6] Corriente, Pereira and Vicente derive the Spanish word and Portuguese garfo “fork” directly from the Andalusian form of the same Arabic noun, with a Romance adjectival suffix.^[7] The 1884 Academy dictionary, Moliner and García de Diego also start from that noun, which García de Diego probably derives from a reconstructed Romance word for “hook”.^[8][9][10]

The Latin word survives with the ⟨r⟩ in its original place in Old Occitan grafi (“stylus”) and French greffe (“graft”); with the moved ⟨r⟩ in the Portuguese word (also “graft”), Asturian garciu (“graft”) and Catalan garfi (“hook”).^[3][11][12] Corominas notes that the same Latin root gave Italian graffiare (“to scratch”) and Catalan garfinyar (“to scratch”).^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Libro de Apolonio (c. 1250) still uses grafio de azero for the steel point one writes with.^[3] In Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora (1252) grafio already names a tool for catching hold of floating objects, next to its synonym guizquio; one manuscript has the spelling garfio there.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century the word named the iron hooks used to lift meat out of cooking pots, in the General Estoria (c. 1275) and in the Bible translations, and the grappling hooks thrown onto an enemy ship.^[2][13] Nebrija gives it as Latin uncus, and has a separate “hook for taking out meat” and a “ship's hook”.^[14][15] Autoridades simply equated it with garabato, and Terreros described it as a pointed, bent iron for hanging or seizing things.^[16][17] The Academy's 1869 definition, an iron tool curved and pointed for seizing an object, is close to the one still in use.^[18][6]

In Argentina, Cuba and Uruguay garfios is colloquial for the fingers of the hand, and in rural Puerto Rico garfio names the grip on the handle of a shovel.^[6][19] In Portuguese and Asturian the related words came to mean a graft or cutting.^[3][11]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – the Libro de Apolonio has grafio for a writing point.^[3]
• 1252 – Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora uses grafio for a hook.^[2][3]
• c. 1275 – Alfonso X's General Estoria has the diminutive garfiellos for meat hooks.^[13][2]
• 1280 – the fourth part of the General Estoria uses garfios for a ship's grappling hooks.^[2][13]
• 1293 – the Gran Conquista de Ultramar has garfios de fierro, the earliest record without a later copy.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates it as Latin uncus and uncinus.^[14]
• 1544 – the first record from the Americas, in Paraguay.^[20]
• 1734 – Autoridades defines it as the same as garabato.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from garfa.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hook: a curved, pointed iron tool for catching hold of or hanging something; a gaff: Sacaron el pez del agua con un garfio.^[6][1][9]
2. (colloquial, Argentina, Cuba, Uruguay) A finger of the hand.^[6][19]
3. (Puerto Rico, rural) The grip on the handle of a shovel.^[19][21]

Related words

• garfa
• garra
• agarrar
• Latin graphium
• Portuguese garfo

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. garfio
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 102
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. garra
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. graphium
6. ^ a b c d e 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. garfio
7. ^ Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. garfio
8. ^ 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. 524
9. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. garfio
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
11. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1654
12. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. garfi
13. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. garfio
14. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 356
15. ^ 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. garfio
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 24
17. ^ 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, 211
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 380
19. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. garfio
20. ^ 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. garfio
21. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. garfio