goma

Forms

goma f (plural gomas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin gumma (“gum”), a late form of cummi or gummi, which is from Ancient Greek κόμμι (kómmi, “gum”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas notes that this late form already appears in the Latin translation of Dioscorides of the 6th century, and that all the Romance forms come from it.^[3] The same word is Portuguese goma, Catalan goma, Old Occitan goma, French gomme and Italian gomma.^[5][6]

The Greek word comes from Egypt: Beekes and Wiktionary derive it from Egyptian qmyt (“gum, acanthus resin”), and the LSJ calls it a foreign word, probably Egyptian.^[7][1][8][9] Beekes thinks Latin took the word from Greek rather than independently from Egyptian;^[7] Corominas allows only that it may have come through Greek.^[7][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is in Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor (1335 in the short dictionary).^[3][4] The CDH and the HSMS have it a century earlier, in the Moamín (1250, in a copy of the second half of the 13th century), a treatise on hunting birds: tomen del çumo de la regaliza e de la goma aráuiga e del açúcar “let them take some of the juice of liquorice, of gum arabic and of sugar”.^[10][11] Alfonso X's Lapidario of the same years has goma dalbelat, a cement made with marble dust, pitch and egg white.^[12]

Semantic evolution

In medieval and early modern Spanish the word named the gums of plants, used in medicine and as glue: Nebrija calls it the “sweat of a tree”, and Autoridades (1734) adds goma arábiga, from an acacia, and a tumour on the head, throat or limbs, thought to come from viscous humours.^[13][14] The medical sense survives as a syphilitic tumour.^[2][15] In 1917 Alemany records goma elástica, the milky juice of tropical plants that dries into a waterproof, elastic mass.^[16] The modern senses “rubber”, “rubber band”, “eraser”, “tyre” and, colloquially, “condom” come from it.^[2]

Alemany also records the Central American sense “hangover”, which Membreño had described for Honduras in 1897.^[16][17] In the baseball countries of the Caribbean, Mexico, Nicaragua and Venezuela goma is the home plate; in the Southern Cone it is a vulgar word for a woman's breast.^[18][19] Spanish passed the word to Tagalog and other languages of the Philippines as goma.^[1]

Timeline

• 6th century – the Latin Dioscorides has gumma.^[3]
• 1250 – the Moamín and Alfonso X's Lapidario.^[10][11]
• 1251 – a Latin toll list of James I of Aragon lists a load of goma.^[10]
• 1335 – Juan Ruiz, Corominas's first record.^[4]
• 1513 – the first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[20]
• 1515 – the derivative engomar.^[4]
• 1560 – Domingo de Santo Tomás's Quechua lexicon glosses goma as the sweat of a tree.^[21]
• 1734 – Autoridades records goma arábiga and the medical sense.^[14]
• 1897 – Membreño records the Honduran sense “hangover”.^[17]
• 1917 – Alemany records goma elástica, rubber.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. gum: a sticky substance that flows from various plants, soluble in water when dry and used as glue.^[2][1]
2. A rubber band.^[2][1]
3. An eraser (goma de borrar).^[2][1]
4. rubber, caoutchouc: unas botas de goma.^[2][1]
5. chewing gum.^[2][1]
6. A tyre.^[2][1][22]
7. (colloquial) A condom.^[2][1]
8. (medicine) A gumma, a round tumour of syphilitic origin in the bones or organs.^[2][15]
9. (Central America) A hangover.^[2][16]
10. (Mexico, Caribbean, Venezuela; baseball) home plate.^[18][19]
11. (Chile, Argentina, Uruguay; vulgar) A woman's breast.^[18][1]

Word family

• engomar
• gomoso
• gomina
• gomita
• gomorresina

Related words

• Latin cummi
• Italian gomma
• French gomme

Usage notes

Set phrases include goma arábiga “gum arabic”, goma de mascar “chewing gum” and goma elástica “rubber”.^[1][23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. goma
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 170
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. goma
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 183
7. ^ a b c 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
8. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. cummi
10. ^ 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. goma
11. ^ a b Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. goma
12. ^ 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. goma
13. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 357
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 60
15. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. goma
16. ^ a b c d Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 841
17. ^ a b Membreño, Alberto (1897), Hondureñismos: vocabulario de los provincialismos de Honduras, 2nd ed., Tegucigalpa: Tipografía Nacional, p. 84
18. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. goma
19. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. goma
20. ^ 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. goma
21. ^ Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. goma
22. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. goma
23. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. goma