gasa

Forms

gasa f (plural gasas)^[1]

Etymology

Corominas considers it probably borrowed from Arabic قز (qazz, “silk; floss silk; gauze”), a word of Persian origin.^[2][3][1] He holds that it was not inherited from the Arabic of Spain but came through trade, in a form not yet identified: its /s/, not /z/, shows that it was not taken straight from Hispano-Arabic.^[2] The DLE takes the Arabic word from Persian كژ (kaž, “raw silk”).^[4][5] Moliner says it came through Italian.^[6] Bénaben and the DHLF think Spanish took it from French gaze, and the DHLF dates the French word to 1461;^[7][8] Corominas has it from 1554.^[7][8][2]

Corominas follows Kluge's suggestion: in Egyptian Arabic the word means gauze, as well as the cocoon and raw silk.^[2] He rejects an old view, going back to Du Cange and held by Diez, that the cloth was named after the town of Gaza in Palestine, for which there is no evidence.^[2] García de Diego, Gómez de Silva and the Academy's dictionaries of 1884 to 1917 nevertheless gave that etymology.^{[9][10][11][12]} Covarrubias derived it from Latin cassis (“net”).^[13]

The French word passed to English gauze, Dutch gaas and German Gaze.^[2][8] Aragonese customs lists and a royal decree of 1642 have a similar cloth called caza.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas found it first in Covarrubias (1611).^[2][3] The CDH has it earlier, in a romance of the Flor de romances (1592): a girl puts on toca de gasa “a headdress of gauze”.^[14] The DTME also dates the word to 1592.^[15] The CDH's 15th-century hits are the town of Gaza, spelt Gasa and Gassa.^[14]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias described it as cloth woven like a very fine net.^[13] Autoridades spelt it gassa and quoted a 1680 price list with gassa de Napoles “Naples gauze”.^[16] Corominas notes that neither spelling tells whether the /s/ was voiced in older Spanish.^[2] In the Americas the cloth appears in Guatemala in 1610 as gaza de China “Chinese gauze”.^[17] The Academy defined it from 1817 as a very thin, open silk or linen cloth that women used in their finery.^[18] In 1917 Alemany added the black band men wore on the hat in mourning.^[12]

The medical sense, an open cotton fabric for dressings, is now the commonest, and gasa also names the cotton cloth used as a nappy.^[4][15] In the plural it names the thin curtains in front of a cinema screen.^[6] In Mexico it is a road interchange.^[19]

Timeline

• 1461 – first record of French gaze, according to the DHLF.^[8]
• 1592 – first Spanish record, toca de gasa in the Flor de romances.^[14][15]
• 1610 – first record from the Americas, in Guatemala.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines the word, the first record Corominas gives.^[13][3]
• 1642 – a royal decree names a similar cloth caza.^[2]
• 1680 – a price list quoted by Autoridades has gassa de Napoles.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives the word from Gaza.^[11]
• 1917 – Alemany records the black mourning band worn on hats.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. gauze, chiffon: a very thin, open cloth of silk or linen.^[4][1]
2. A band of gauze or black cloth worn round a hat in mourning (luto).^[4]
3. (medicine) Open-woven cotton fabric, sterilised or soaked in medicine, used for dressings and bandages; a piece of it: Le tapó el corte con una gasa.^[4][15]
4. Absorbent cotton cloth used as a baby's nappy (pañal).^[4]
5. (Mexico) A road interchange joining two or more motorways.^[19]

Related words

• French gaze
• English gauze

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 120
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gasa
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. gasa
5. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
6. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gasa
7. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. gasa
8. ^ a b c d Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. gaze
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 3057
10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. gasa
11. ^ 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. 525
12. ^ a b c Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 822
13. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 898
14. ^ 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. gasa
15. ^ a b c d Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. gasa
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 31
17. ^ 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. gasa
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 438
19. ^ 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. gasa