glóbulo

Forms

glóbulo m (plural glóbulos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin globulus (“little ball, globule; pill”), a diminutive of globus (“ball, round mass”).^[2][3][4][5] The Latin diminutive is formed with the suffix -ulus and is rare in classical texts, where Pliny uses it for small balls and medical writers for pills.^[5][6] The same Latin word gave English globule and French globule.^[1][7]

De Vaan considers the base noun probably a loanword and relates it to glēba (“clod”).^[8] The DTME notes that the sense “blood corpuscle” was taken up again from English, where it is documented from 1682.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is in the first volume of Feijoo's Teatro crítico universal (1726), for the particles into which matter is divided: para la formación de los glóbulos.^[10] Corominas's first record is Terreros's dictionary of 1765–1783, which defines it as a small globe.^[2][3][7]

Semantic evolution

In 1733 Feijoo already explained that the red colour of blood comes from very small glóbulos seen under the microscope, and Torres Villarroel and Feijoo also used the diminutive globulillo.^[10] In the Americas the first record is from Lima in 1791, for globules of mercury.^[11] The Academy's dictionary of 1899 defined it as a small spherical body and, in zoology, as a round single cell found in body fluids, especially the blood.^[12] Today glóbulo rojo and glóbulo blanco are the red and white blood cells.^[4][13]

Timeline

• 1726 – Feijoo uses glóbulos for particles of matter.^[10]
• 1733 – Feijoo writes of the glóbulos of the blood.^[10]
• 1765–1783 – Terreros records it in his dictionary; this is Corominas's date.^[3][7]
• 1791 – the first record from the Americas, in Lima.^[11]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the zoological sense.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small spherical body, a globule.^[4][1]
2. (anatomy) A blood cell: glóbulo rojo a red cell, glóbulo blanco a white cell.^[4][1][13]

Related words

• globo
• globular
• Latin globus
• English globule

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 155
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. globo
4. ^ a b c d 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. glóbulo
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. globulus
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. globulus
7. ^ a b c 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, 220
8. ^ 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. globus
9. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. glóbulo
10. ^ 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. glóbulo
11. ^ 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. glóbulo
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 495
13. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. glóbulo