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guitarra

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word guitarra

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1240–1250 Libro de Alexandre, in an early 15th-century copy More words from the 13th century
Borrowed from
Arabic قيثارة
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek κιθάρα
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Spanish guitarra
English guitar
French guitare
Derivations
From the same root
English guitarist ← guitar

Pronunciation

  • /ɡiˈtara/, [ɡiˈt̪a.ra][1]

Forms

guitarra f (plural guitarras)[1] Old Spanish spellings include guitarra, gujtarra, guytarra, gitarra and guintarra.[2] Extremaduran has quitarra.[3][4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Arabic قيثارة (qīṯārah), from Aramaic קיתרא (qīṯārā), from Ancient Greek κιθάρα (kithára, “cithara, lyre”).[5][1][6] Corominas also derives it from Arabic.[7][8] Corriente, Pereira and Vicente call the Arabic form Neo-Arabic and the intermediate Syriac.[9] The Arabic word kept the Greek stress and the initial velar stop, unlike Latin cithara, so Corominas holds that it passed from Greek to Arabic in the East, not through Spain.[7] Corriente notes that the usual Andalusian Arabic word had a diphthong in its first syllable and cannot be the source of the Romance word.[3]

Spain was the main door through which this Arabism entered Europe, not Italy, as Corominas and Schmidt agree.[7] Portuguese guitarra and Catalan guitarra would also come straight from Arabic, and the Catalan word in turn gave Old Occitan guitara; Italian chitarra may have its own Arabic source.[7] French has guiterne in the 13th century and guitare from 1547.[7] Corriente agrees that the word spread from the Peninsula in connection with Andalusian lyric.[3]

Earlier writers proposed other routes: Autoridades took the word from French, and Monlau and Eguílaz from the Latin word.[10][11][12] Spanish cítara, cítola and cedra are doublets of the same Greek word.[1] Wiktionary, following Beekes, takes the Greek word as Pre-Greek.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in an early 15th-century copy), in a list of instruments: guitarra e vïola que las cuitas enbota “the guitar and the viol that dull one's cares”.[13][14] Corominas's first record is Juan Ruiz, whose Libro de buen amor (1330–1343) distinguishes the guitarra morisca from the guitarra latina.[7][8][13]

Semantic evolution

The word is well recorded in every period.[13] The Poema de Alfonso Onceno (before 1348) has a guitarra serranisca played by highlanders, and an Aragonese inventory of 1373 lists a strung guitar.[7][14] Covarrubias in 1611 complains that the guitar, a small vihuela with five strings or four courses, had harmed music, which was played earlier on the vihuela.[15] Autoridades (1734) describes a ten-string instrument and records a tool for crushing plaster, and the phrase no estar templada la guitarra “to be in a bad mood”.[10][16] The Academy's 1899 edition describes six strings.[17]

The first records from the Americas are from Guadalajara in Mexico, in 1590.[18] In 1648 the English traveller Thomas Gage wrote of the Guitarra (the Spanish Lute).[19] The English word guitar (1620s) came from guitare, whose form Etymonline traces to Spanish and Provençal influence.[20] Gómez de Silva makes the Spanish word the source of the French one.[21] In Peru guitarra also names a guitarfish.[22]

Timeline

  • 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre (in an early 15th-century copy).[13][14]
  • c. 1270 – the Historia troyana en prosa y verso.[13]
  • 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz names the guitarra morisca and the guitarra latina.[7][13]
  • 1373 – an Aragonese inventory.[7]
  • 1547 – French guitare becomes frequent.[7]
  • 1590 – the first records from the Americas, in Guadalajara.[18]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias calls it a small vihuela.[15]
  • 1620s – the English word guitar.[20]
  • 1648 – Thomas Gage uses Guitarra in an English book.[19]
  • 1734 – Autoridades records the tool for crushing plaster.[10]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A guitar: a stringed instrument with a figure-of-eight sound box, a long fretted neck and usually six strings plucked with the fingers.[5][1]
  2. A tool for crushing plaster to powder.[5]
  3. (masculine and feminine) A guitarist.[5]
  4. (Peru) A guitarfish, a flat-bodied sea fish.[1][22]

Word family

Usage notes

Guitarra eléctrica is the electric guitar.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. guitarra
  3. ^ a b c Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 137
  4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3652
  5. ^ a b c d e 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. guitarra
  6. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. guitarra
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 278
  8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. guitarra
  9. ^ 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. guitarra
  10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 98
  11. ^ Monlau, Pedro Felipe (1856), Diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana (ensayo), Madrid: Imprenta de la Sociedad Literaria y Tipográfica, p. 292
  12. ^ Eguílaz y Yanguas, Leopoldo de (1886), Glosario etimológico de las palabras españolas (castellanas, catalanas, gallegas, mallorquinas, portuguesas, valencianas y bascongadas) de origen oriental, Granada: La Lealtad, p. 440
  13. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. guitarra
  14. ^ 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. guitarra
  15. ^ 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. 953
  16. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. guitarra
  17. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 511
  18. ^ 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. guitarra
  19. ^ a b Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. guitarra
  20. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  21. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 341
  22. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. guitarra

Borrowed into

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Guitarra.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/guitarra. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·