granada

Forms

granada f (plural granadas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin grānātum (“pomegranate”), short for mālum grānātum (“seeded apple”).^[2][3][1] The Latin adjective grānātus (“containing many seeds”) is formed from grānum (“grain, seed”), and was used only in this phrase or alone as a noun, for the fruit and the tree.^[4][1] Gómez de Silva goes through Vulgar Latin *granata, from the Latin plural grānāta.^[5] Wiktionary takes the noun from the feminine of granado, while Corominas has the fruit's name first and the tree's from it.^[1][6][7]

Corominas suggests that the Spanish fruit and tree names may be a kind of correction of malgranada and malgranado, of the 13th century, from the Latin phrase: country people would have understood it as “badly grained” and dropped the first part, which would not sell well.^[6][8] Blends of the phrase with mille (“thousand”) and grāna (“grains”) gave Catalan magrana, mangrana, melgrana and milgrano (in Berceo), and the regional mingrano and minglana.^[6][3] Compare Italian melagranata and French grenade, which the French took from the dialects of northern Italy.^[1][9]

The military sense came from the likeness of the shell to the fruit in shape and size.^[5] Wiktionary adds that the ⟨d⟩ of the French word shows the influence of the Spanish word.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEMel's earliest dated primary record is a document of 1258 with granadas; it also lists granadas in the Historia de la doncella Teodor, which it dates with a query to about 1250.^[10] In Alfonso X's Libro de las formas e imágenes (1276–1279) the tree milgrano should bear sweet granadas, “pomegranates”.^[11] The CDH's earliest hits are mostly the adjective granado “great”, as in Berceo.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Corominas's first record is the glossaries of El Escorial of about 1400, followed by Palencia and Nebrija.^[6][7] Nebrija glosses it with Latin malum punicum, and Percyvall's dictionary of 1591 translates it “a pomegranate”.^[13][14] Covarrubias in 1611 explained the name by the many grains inside and rejected the idea that the city of Granada had given it; he also made the fruit a symbol of a commonwealth whose members are united.^[15]

The weapon is first defined in Autoridades (1734): a hollow globe of cardboard, glass, bronze or, usually, iron, of the size of a pomegranate, filled with powder and fitted with a fuse, which grenadiers carried in leather pouches and threw lit among the enemy; a granada real was fired from a mortar.^[16][17] The Academy's edition of 1817 called the sense metaphorical, and the 1884 edition added the hollow projectile fired from a howitzer.^[18][19] Today the hand grenade is granada de mano.^[2]

In Murcia the varieties are called granada albar, with nearly white sweet grains, and granada cajín, with crimson bittersweet ones;^[20] cajín is from Andalusian Arabic.^[2][20] Spaniards in Peru named the passion fruit granadilla from its likeness to the pomegranate, as Monardes reported.^[21] In Guatemala granada is a kind of firework.^[22]

Timeline

• 1258 – granadas in a dated document.^[10]
• 1276–1279 – Alfonso X's Libro de las formas e imágenes speaks of sweet pomegranates.^[11]
• c. 1400 – the glossaries of El Escorial, Corominas's first record.^[6][7]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives the Latin malum punicum.^[13]
• 1513 – first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the name by the fruit's many grains.^[15]
• 1734 – Autoridades defines the grenade carried by grenadiers.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy adds the artillery shell and gives the etymology from Latin granatum.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pomegranate, the fruit of the granado, round and crowned with small teeth, with a thin leathery skin over many juicy red seeds.^[2][1]
2. An artillery shell: a hollow metal projectile filled with explosive and fired from a howitzer or other gun.^[2][1]
3. (historical) A ball of cardboard, glass, bronze or iron about the size of a pomegranate, filled with powder and fitted with a fuse, which grenadiers (granaderos) threw lit at the enemy.^[2]
4. A hand grenade (in full granada de mano): Los soldados lanzaron una granada contra la trinchera.^[2][1]

Word family

• granadero
• lanzagranadas
• granadilla

Related words

• granado
• granar
• grano
• granate
• Latin granum
• Italian melagranata

Usage notes

The city and province of Granada, Spanish Granada, have a name of their own, from Arabic غرناطة (Ḡarnāṭa), originally a suburb; it came to be linked with the fruit only by folk etymology.^[1] Covarrubias already reported Arabic explanations of the city's name.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. granada
3. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. granada
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. grānātus
5. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 334
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 196
7. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. grano
8. ^ 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. granada
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. grenade
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. granada
11. ^ 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. granada
12. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. granada
13. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 358
14. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 148
15. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 932
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 71
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 72
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 448
19. ^ 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. 539
20. ^ a b Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. cajel
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. granada
22. ^ Batres Jáuregui, Antonio (1892), Vicios del lenguaje y provincialismos de Guatemala, Guatemala: Encuadernación y Tipografía Nacional, p. 302
23. ^ 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. granada