gleba

Forms

gleba f (plural glebas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin glēba (“lump of earth, clod”), a learned word.^[2][3][1][4] The inherited outcome of the Latin word survives in Portuguese leiva (“ridge of earth between furrows; clod”), which Cunha and Nascentes derive from Vulgar Latin *glēbea;^[5][6][7] Houaiss calls Portuguese gleba its learned doublet.^[5][6][7] García de Diego adds a Murcian dialect form for “clod” beside the Portuguese one.^[4]

The Latin noun is attested from Cato on, with the spelling ⟨glaeb-⟩ mainly in Pliny.^[8] De Vaan considers only Baltic words likely cognates, Lithuanian glėbti (“to embrace, clasp”) and Latvian glêbt (“to guard, protect”), from Proto-Indo-European *glēbh-, and would ignore the Germanic words often compared, such as Old High German klāftra; given the narrow distribution, he thinks a PIE origin is not very likely.^[8] He also relates it to globus.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Juan de Mena's Laberinto de Fortuna (1444), where the clear sky does not suffer nubíferas glebas “cloud-bearing clods”.^[2][10] The Comendador griego, commenting on Mena, explained that the poet calls the dark clouds glebas, which properly means clods of earth.^[11] Juan del Encina, in his Cancionero (1496), has the west wind loosening the glebas de tierra, the frozen clods of spring.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades defines it as the clod turned up by the plough and calls it a purely Latin word.^[11] Terreros describes a heavy, damp, cold clod and notes that Oudin took it for an ear of wheat.^[12] The Academy marked the word as antiquated in 1817, dropped the label in 1843, and in 1869 added siervos de la gleba, slaves bound to an estate and sold with it.^[13][14][15] The etymology appeared in 1884.^[16] In Medieval Latin the word already meant “soil”, “farm” and church land.^[17] The DLE now adds “arable land” and, by figurative extension, “the common people”, a use found in Mexico in the 1930s; in Huesca it means ground covered with turf.^[3][18]

Timeline

• 1444 – first record, in Juan de Mena's Laberinto de Fortuna.^[2][10]
• c. 1440–1460 – the Árbol de batallas uses gleba for a piece of armour.^[10]
• 1496 – Juan del Encina writes of glebas de tierra.^[10]
• 1734 – Autoridades enters it as the clod turned up by the plough, a purely Latin word.^[11]
• 1869 – the Academy adds siervos de la gleba.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A clod of earth turned up by the plough (arado): Las glebas quedaron secas al sol.^[3][19][1]
2. arable land; soil.^[3][1]
3. (figurative) The common people, the lowest class.^[3][20]
4. (Huesca) Ground covered with turf (césped).^[3][19]
5. (mycology) The spore-bearing inner tissue of puffballs and related fungi.^[21]

Related words

• Latin glēba
• Portuguese leiva
• English glebe

Usage notes

The set phrase siervo de la gleba is a serf bound to the land.^[3][15] In the 15th century gleba also named a piece of armour for the legs: Nebrija (1513) glosses it with Latin tibiale.^[22][10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gleba
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. gleba
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3100
5. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2019
6. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. leiva
7. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. leiva
8. ^ 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
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. gleba
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 53
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 444
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 366
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 387
16. ^ 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. 533
17. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
18. ^ 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. gleba
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gleba
20. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. gleba
21. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
22. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 357