greda

Forms

greda f (plural gredas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin crēta (“chalk; fine clay”).^[2][3][4][1] The initial ⟨cr-⟩ became ⟨gr-⟩, a regular change in García de Diego's view.^[5] The learned variant greta and the adjective cretáceo come from the same Latin word.^[2][3]

The same word is Catalan greda, Portuguese greda, Occitan greda, French craie and Italian creta.^[6][7] Old Catalan and Old Aragonese also have gleda, and Murcian has glea.^[6][7] In Catalan the word survives mainly in place names, and Coromines records it in a Roussillon inventory of 1399.^[8]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain.^[9][1] It was once explained as (terra) crēta (“sifted earth”), the participle of cernō (“to sift”), which de Vaan finds phonetically possible but semantically weak.^[9][1] He prefers Pedersen's comparison with the Celtic words for clay, Old Irish cré and Welsh pridd.^[9] Latin may have borrowed the word from Celtic, or both from an unknown third language.^[9] Covarrubias in 1611 already wondered whether the clay was named after the island of Crete or the island after the clay.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Two works of 1250, known from later 13th-century copies, have the word: the Moamín, a treatise on hunting birds, prescribes a remedy ground with greda, and Alfonso X's Lapidario describes a stone de color de greda.^[11][12][2] The DCECH and the BDELC, without these texts, date the word to the glossaries of Toledo and El Escorial of about 1400.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

The word has always named a sandy, bluish-white clay used to take grease out of cloth.^[2][4] Nebrija gives greda para adobar paños “clay for dressing cloth”, and Covarrubias describes its use in fulling cloth and a hill of fine clay near Toledo.^[2][10] Autoridades adds removing stains and clarifying wine, quoting a law of 1511 on fullers.^[13] In 1576 Mexican women are reported using it in spinning, under the Nahuatl name tiçatl.^[14]

In Cáceres, Almería and other southern provinces it replaces arcilla in popular use, often pronounced grea.^[2] The Dominican Republic uses greda for a road grader.^[15]

Timeline

• 1250 – the Moamín and Alfonso X's Lapidario use greda.^[11]
• 1251 – a toll list for Burriana and Játiva has the eastern form gleda.^[11]
• c. 1400 – the glossaries of Toledo and El Escorial, the DCECH's first record.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records greda and gredoso.^[2][3]
• 1571 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes its use by fullers.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. creta”.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. fuller's earth: a sandy, usually bluish-white clay used to absorb grease and in making ceramics.^[4][1]

Word family

• gredoso
• gredal
• engredar

Related words

• greta
• cretáceo
• Latin crēta
• French craie

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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, 203
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. greda
4. ^ 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. greda
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. crassus
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. creta
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. 4, 633
9. ^ a b c d 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. crēta
10. ^ 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. 935
11. ^ 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. greda
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. greda
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4
14. ^ 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. greda
15. ^ 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. greda
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 541