golpe

Forms

golpe m (plural golpes, diminutive golpecito)^[1] Old Spanish colpe is the form of the Cid, Berceo and the Libro de Alexandre, and Aragon kept it until at least 1400;^[2][3] golpe appears in the Calila of 1251 and in Juan Ruiz, and spread through Castile in the 14th century.^[2][3] García de Diego also lists Old Spanish golpo, and Old Galician colbe.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish colpe, inherited from Vulgar Latin *colŭpus, a popular form of Latin colaphus (“a punch”), which is from Ancient Greek κόλαφος (kólaphos, “a slap, buffet”).^[2][3][6] Wiktionary takes the immediate source to be Late Latin colpus, the syncopated form found in the Salic Law and the Reichenau Glosses.^[1][7]

Meyer-Lübke and Wartburg, struck by its sounds, took the Spanish and Portuguese word for a borrowing from French.^[2] Corominas rejects this: the word is as old, frequent and wide in meaning in Ibero-Romance as elsewhere, and a loan in so basic a word is unlikely, so he explains its form within Spanish.^[2] The unstressed vowel after the stress, firm in all the Romance forms, points not to the Classical form with short ⟨ă⟩ but to the Vulgar Latin one, with the usual weakening of a short vowel in an open syllable.^[2] Wiktionary likewise puts the missing diphthong down to the word's Greek origin, and explains the final ⟨-e⟩ as a sign that the noun was formed from the Old Spanish verb golpar (“to strike, wound”), from Vulgar Latin *colaphāre.^[1] García de Diego also derives the noun from this verb, and rejects Corominas's explanation by dissimilation from golpo.^[4]

The same word is Portuguese golpe, Catalan cop (older colp), Occitan còp, French coup and Italian colpo.^[1][8] The English word coup comes from the French one.^[1] The Latin word occurs from Plautus on.^[9] Beekes calls the Greek one a lowly word without a clear etymology, probably Pre-Greek.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has colpe in the sense “a single throw, one go”: „A tod el primer colpe, echaron trezientos marcos de plata” “at the very first go they poured out three hundred marks of silver”.^[11] The first record without a later copy is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), on blows with forbidden weapons.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the word already named blows of all kinds, and Alfonso X's prose has the phrase a colpe “suddenly”.^[12][2] From an early date it also meant a large quantity: in 1494 a letter from Santo Domingo speaks of gathering „un buen golpe de oro” “a good heap of gold”, and Covarrubias in 1611 has golpe de agua.^[13][14] Autoridades in 1734 gives the sense of a crowd or plenty, golpe de gente and golpe de música.^[15]

Other senses came from the sudden blow: misfortune, surprise, a witty remark, a sudden movement, the latch that shuts when a door is slammed.^[6][16] Terreros in the 18th century gave French coup as its equivalent for a feat or stroke of fortune, and in 1855 Baralt condemned imitations of French coup such as golpes de sombra.^[17][18] The phrase golpe de Estado names a seizure of power, and golpe alone is now also a robbery or heist.^[6][1] In Central America, Mexico and Ecuador it is a drag on a cigarette, and in Venezuela a swig of liquor.^[19]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has the form colpe.^[2][11]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes has the spelling golpe.^[11]
• 1251 – the Calila e Dimna has golpe, the date the DCECH and the BDELC give for this form.^[2][3]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's prose uses a colpe “suddenly”.^[12]
• 1494 – first record in the Americas, at Santo Domingo, in the sense “a quantity”.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin ictus and percussus as its equivalents.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records golpes del pecho as a sign of penance.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin colaphus.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A blow, hit or knock: the act of one body striking another with force.^[6][1]
2. The mark or sound a blow leaves: Se oyó un golpe en la puerta.^[6][1]
3. A quick, sudden movement: un golpe de timón.^[6]
4. Surprise, amazement.^[6][1]
5. A witty, well-timed remark.^[6]
6. A sudden rush or great quantity of something: un golpe de agua, un golpe de viento.^[6][1]
7. A sudden misfortune.^[6]
8. A heartbeat.^[6][1]
9. (gardening) The plant or plants set in one hole; the hole itself.^[6][1]
10. (billiards) A stroke that scores.^[6][1]
11. A robbery or heist.^[6][1]
12. Short for golpe de Estado, a coup d'état.^[1][6]

Word family

• golpear
• autogolpe
• golpetazo
• golpiza
• paragolpes
• agolpar
• golpista

Related words

• Latin colaphus
• French coup
• Italian colpo

Usage notes

Set phrases include de golpe “suddenly”, golpe de gracia “coup de grâce”, golpe de vista “a quick glance” and golpe bajo “a low blow”.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 166
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. golpe
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. colaphus
5. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1701
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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. golpe
7. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. colpus
8. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 2, 898
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. colaphus
10. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. κόλαφος
11. ^ 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. golpe
12. ^ a b Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. golpe
13. ^ 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. colpe
14. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 919
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. golpe
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. 535
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, 224
18. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. 333
19. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. golpe
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 357