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grasa

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word grasa

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1300 before 1300, Libro de los halcones More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin grassa
Ultimate origin
Latin crassus

Pronunciation

  • /ˈɡɾasa/, [ˈɡɾa.sa][1]

Forms

grasa f (plural grasas)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin grassa (“fat”), the feminine of the adjective grassus (“fat, thick”) used as a noun.[1][2][3][4] The Vulgar Latin adjective, found as early as Pelagonius in the 4th century, comes from Latin crassus (“thick, fat”) by a sound change helped by the near-synonym grossus (“thick”).[5][6] The BDELC calls the noun the feminine of the rare adjective graso.[7] Corominas thinks this adjective was not inherited but drawn late from the noun, and wonders whether even the noun might have come from another language, though early.[5] The learned doublet is craso, recorded from 1550.[5][7]

In the other Romance languages the adjective is the usual word for “fat”: Catalan gras, French gras, Italian grasso and Romanian gras.[5] Their nouns for the substance, French graisse, Occitan graissa, Catalan greix and Portuguese graxa, continue instead a Vulgar Latin abstract noun *crassia.[5][8] García de Diego explains the Portuguese palatal by a normal change of -ss-, without that form.[3]

The Latin adjective has no clear origin: de Vaan finds the old derivation from Proto-Indo-European *kert- (“to wind”) semantically gratuitous, and Wiktionary leaves the word uncertain.[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest certain records are in falconry books copied before 1300: toma el musgo con la grassa dela gallina & vnta los pies “take musk with hen's fat and anoint the feet”.[10] A hit of 1293, Bolonna la Grasa, is the name of the city of Bologna.[10] Corominas's first record is the Libro de la montería of Alfonso XI, of the first half of the 14th century: adipata son comeres adobados con grassa “adipata are dishes dressed with fat”.[5][11]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija in about 1495 has grassa for fatness, the fat of a fattened animal, and a grassa for writing, Latin vernix.[12][5] Covarrubias explains this as the gum of the juniper, rubbed on paper so that the ink does not run.[13] The sense “dirt stuck to clothes by contact with the body” is frequent from 1605, in the Pícara Justina.[5] The Academy listed animal fat, juniper gum, that dirt and a paste for writing in 1817, and added the plural for the slag skimmed off molten metal in 1899.[14][15] Today it is also a lubricant and the biochemical name for fats.[6]

In Mexico grasa is shoe polish, and dar grasa is to polish shoes.[16][17] In Argentina and Uruguay it is a person of vulgar tastes, a sense the DLE enters under its own headword derived from the noun.[18][17] In the Dominican Republic it means money, and a bribe to a policeman.[19]

Timeline

  • 1293 – Bolonna la Grasa, a city name, in the Gran conquista de Ultramar.[10]
  • before 1300 – the falconry books use grassa for animal fat.[10]
  • 1342–1350 – the Libro de la montería of Alfonso XI.[11][5]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija records grassa and grassiento.[12][7]
  • 1513 – first record in the Americas, a pound of grease in Puerto Rico.[20]
  • 1605 – the sense “dirt on clothes”, in the Pícara Justina.[5]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias describes the juniper gum used on paper.[13]
  • 1617 – first record of the derivative engrasar.[7]
  • 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives grasa from graso.[21]

Meanings

Noun

  1. Animal fat: lard, grease or tallow.[6][1]
  2. The gum of the juniper.[6]
  3. grime on clothes, or stuck to them by rubbing against the body.[6]
  4. A greasy lubricant: Hay que poner grasa en las bisagras.[6]
  5. (biochemistry) Fat: any of the organic substances in animal and plant tissues formed of fatty acids combined with glicerina.[6][1]
  6. (Mexico) Shoe polish.[17][16]
  7. (Argentina, Uruguay, colloquial, derogatory) A person of vulgar tastes and habits; also used as an adjective.[18][17]

Word family

  • grasiento
  • engrasar
  • grasoso
  • grasera
  • grasilla
  • engrase

Usage notes

The DLE enters the noun under the adjective graso, and gives a separate headword only to the Argentine and Uruguayan sense, which it derives from the noun.[6][18] The adjective itself is rare outside chemical and biological language (materias grasas).[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. grasa
  3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1950
  4. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. grasa
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 200
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. graso
  7. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. grasa
  8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1721
  9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  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. grasa
  11. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. grasa
  12. ^ a b 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. grasa
  13. ^ 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. 934
  14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 450
  15. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 502
  16. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 563
  17. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. grasa
  18. ^ a b c 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. grasa
  19. ^ 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. grasa
  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. grasa
  21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 540

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Grasa.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/grasa. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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