hierba

Forms

hierba f (plural hierbas)^[1] The glosses spell it ierba; the Cantar de mio Cid has yerba, and Berceo, Juan Ruiz, Alfonso de Palencia, Nebrija and Juan de Valdés write yerva.^[2] Old Spanish texts also have herba, erba, erva, yerua and hierba.^[3] Hierba (also written yerba) is the form of Castilian, Aragonese, Leonese and Asturian;^[4] Navarrese has herba and helba.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin herba (“grass, small plant”); the medieval language wrote it Old Spanish yerva or yerba.^[2][5][1] The same Latin word is Portuguese erva, Galician herba, Catalan herba, French herbe, Italian erba and Romanian iarbă.^[6][4][1] Corominas notes that the spelling with ⟨v⟩ agrees with Portuguese, while the one with ⟨b⟩ agrees with the other Romance languages.^[2] The initial ⟨h⟩ is a Latinising spelling: the Diccionario de Autoridades wrote it because the word comes from Latin.^[7]

The origin of the Latin word is unknown.^[8][9] The OLD tentatively compares Old English græd (“grass”) and reconstructs *gher-dhā; de Vaan rejects this reconstruction if the root of grāmen (“grass”) is *ǵʰreh₁-, and finds no viable alternative.^[10][8] The DHLF calls it a rural word of unknown, pre-Latin origin.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first records are the Glosas Emilianenses and Silenses, of about 950, with the spelling ierba.^[2][5][3] The word then appears in the Cantar de mio Cid and is frequent and general at all periods.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish already used the plural yervas for “poison”, as in the Libro de Alexandre, the Libro de Apolonio and Berceo's Milagros; the Fuero Juzgo speaks of wives who drive their husbands mad por algunas hieruas que les dan “through some herbs they give them”.^[2][11] Juan de Valdés tells of a squire who could not pay for the yervas (pastures) he had rented and had it given out that he had died de yervas, of poison.^[2] In the conquest of the Americas yerba was the usual name for the arrow poison of the Indians: in 1515 a writer in Santo Domingo mentions la yerba con que los caribes pelean “the poison the Caribs fight with”.^[12][13] The sense “poison” survives in parts of Mexico, and in Tabasco the word has passed to a poisonous spider.^[2]

In Argentina, Chile, Peru and Ecuador wild weeds are called yuyo and fodder plants pasto, so that in Argentina yerba means only the yerba mate.^[2] English yerba is borrowed from it.^[1] The 2001 edition of the Academy's dictionary already lists the modern senses “infusion of herbs” and “a drug such as marijuana”.^[14][15] The plural hierbas also counts the years of grazing animals: un toro de cuatro hierbas.^[15][16]

Timeline

• c. 950 – first recorded, as ierba, in the Glosas Emilianenses and Silenses.^[2][5]
• c. 1140 – yerba in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[2]
• c. 1250–1260 – hieruas “potions” in the Fuero Juzgo.^[11]
• 1515 – yerba “arrow poison” in Santo Domingo.^[13]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades spells the word hierba, with ⟨h⟩ after Latin herba.^[7]
• first half of the 19th century – the Academy prefers the spelling yerba.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy again recommends hierba and gives the etymology, Latin herba.^[2][17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A herb, a small plant with a soft stem that dies after seeding in its first or second year, unlike shrubs and trees.^[15][1]
2. grass: the many such plants that grow on a piece of ground: Los niños jugaban sobre la hierba del parque.^[15][1]
3. A flaw or spot in an emerald.^[15]
4. (chiefly in the plural) A poison made from poisonous herbs.^[15]
5. An infusion of herbs.^[15]
6. (slang) marijuana or a similar drug.^[15][1]
7. (in the plural) Each year in the life of an animal raised on pasture.^[15]
8. (in the plural) The pastures of an estate for grazing livestock.^[15]

Word family

• hierbajo
• hierbezuela
• hierbero
• herbazal
• herbaje
• deshierbar
• hierbabuena
• contrahierba

Related words

• herbáceo
• herbario
• herbívoro
• Latin herba
• Portuguese erva

Usage notes

Hierba and yerba are both correct; the spelling was yerba until the second half of the 19th century, and Corominas calls the distinction some countries make between the two spellings artificial.^[5][2] Many plant names are formed with it, such as hierba luisa, hierba mora and hierbabuena “mint”;^[1][18] mala hierba is a weed.^[2][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 354
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. hierba
4. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. herba
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hierba
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 4109
7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 151
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. hierba
12. ^ Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 664
13. ^ 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. hierba
14. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. hierba
15. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. hierba
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. hierba
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 565
18. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. particular