gola

Forms

gola f (plural golas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish gola, inherited from Latin gula (“throat, gullet”).^[2][3][1] Corominas, however, finds the word foreign to Castilian and of several origins: its early sense “gluttony” and the few uses for the throat itself look Aragonese, Leonese or Italian, and the later technical senses come from Catalan, Gallo-Romance or Italian.^[4][3] DICCA-XV calls it an Aragonese outcome shared with Catalan.^[5] The learned doublet, recorded from 1251, is gula “gluttony”, and gules (“red (heraldry)”) is the same word through French gueules, the plural of gueule (“throat”): strips of red-dyed marten throat fur trimmed the collars of cloaks.^[4][3]

The same Latin word is Catalan gola, Portuguese gola, Italian gola and Romanian gură (“mouth”).^[6][1] In Portuguese the throat is rather goela, from a diminutive Vulgar Latin *gulella.^[7]

The Latin word has traditionally been derived from Proto-Indo-European *gʷel- (“to swallow; throat”).^[1][8] De Vaan doubts this, since such a root would not give Latin ⟨gul-⟩ by the regular sound laws.^[9] The root may be imitative, and the forms of the separate branches may have arisen independently.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in an early 15th-century copy) lists among the deadly sins „Gola e Glotonía” “greed and gluttony” in fifth place.^[10][4] The sense “throat” appears in the late 14th century in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Aragonese Historia troyana, where an arrow strikes a man en la gola.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the sense “gluttony” the learned gula soon took the word's place.^[4] As a name for the throat gola stayed rare: Corominas finds it in the Pícara Justina (1605) and once in the Quijote, in a mock-chivalric speech.^[4] Its living senses are technical: the gorget, the armour piece covering the throat (Percyvall 1591, the Quijote, Covarrubias), the crescent-shaped badge worn at the neck by infantry officers on duty (Autoridades), the entrance from a town into a bastion (1705), and a moulding with an S-shaped profile.^[4][11][12] Salvá adds in 1846 the channel by which ships enter some harbours, and Alemany has it in 1917.^[13][14]

The ruff, a pleated collar of linen or lace, is the sense most readers know today from 16th- and 17th-century portraits.^[15][16] In Colombia and Guatemala gola named a kind of women's collar, and Colombian hacer gola meant “to stand up to, resist”.^[17][18] In Argentina it was a light boa of tulle or feathers.^[19]

Timeline

• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre uses gola for “gluttony”.^[4][10]
• 1251 – the learned gula appears in the Calila.^[4][3]
• 1376–1396 – Fernández de Heredia uses gola for the throat.^[10]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses gola as a gorget.^[20][4]
• 1603 – first record of gules “red” in heraldry.^[4][3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias equates gola with Latin gula, the gullet.^[21]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records the throat, the gorget and the officers' badge.^[11]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. gula”.^[22]

Meanings

Noun

1. (colloquial) The throat, the part next to the soft palate.^[2][23]
2. A badge of military officers: a convex metal crescent hung from the neck.^[2]
3. A gorget, the piece of old armour that protected the throat.^[2][1]
4. A ruff, a collar of pleated linen, tulle or lace.^[2][1]
5. (architecture) A moulding with an S-shaped profile, a cyma.^[2]
6. (geography) A channel by which ships enter certain harbours or estuaries.^[2]
7. (military) The entrance from the town into a bastion; the line joining the ends of two flanks of a fortification.^[2]

Word family

• goloso
• golosina
• golilla
• engolado
• golosear
• engolosinar

Related words

• gula
• gules
• engullir
• French gueule

Usage notes

Gola inversa or gola reversa is the moulding with the convex part above and the concave part below.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. gola
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gola
4. ^ 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, 159
5. ^ 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. gola
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1700
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. gueule
9. ^ a b 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. gula
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. gola
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 57
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 445
13. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 555
14. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 840
15. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. gola
17. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 27
18. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 437
19. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 228
20. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 147
21. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 917
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 496
23. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. gola