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hogaza

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word hogaza

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1056 a charter in Oelschläger's list More words from the 11th century
Inherited from
Latin focacia via Old Spanish
Ultimate origin
Latin focus

Pronunciation

  • /oˈɡaθa/, [oˈɣ̞a.θa], /oˈɡasa/[1]

Forms

hogaza f (plural hogazas)[1] Old Spanish hogaça and fogaça;[2] García de Diego gives Old Castilian fogaza, Old Leonese fugaza and Cantabrian hogacha and ocacha.[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish hogaça, inherited from Late Latin focācia, the plural of focācium (“small loaf baked under the ashes”), which was taken as a feminine singular.[4][5][6][1] The Latin word is the noun use of the adjective focācius (“of the hearth”), said of bread, attested in the Old Latin Bible.[4][1] It is derived from Latin focus (“hearth, fireplace”), which gave Spanish fuego and hogar.[6][5]

Corominas calls it a word common to all the western Romance languages, from which it passed into several Germanic and Balkan languages.[4] The same word is Portuguese fogaça, Catalan fogassa, French fouace and Italian focaccia.[1][7] From Spain the word passed to the Arabic of Tetouan and Tangier.[4] The doublet focaccia is a modern borrowing from Italian.[1]

The origin of the Latin noun is uncertain; de Vaan rejects a link with fax (“torch”) on formal grounds.[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word from a charter of 1056 in Oelschläger's list.[4][5] The CDH has a Petri Fogaza in a Latin charter of 1237, a personal name.[3] In a literary text it first appears in Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor (1330–1343), where the mountain girl offers hogaças mal amassadas “badly kneaded loaves”.[9][10]

Semantic evolution

The word first named a coarse loaf baked on the hearth.[5] Covarrubias in 1611 describes it as bread of bran or badly sifted flour that shepherds and farmhands knead and bake in their own fire among the ashes, and explains the name from that baking.[11] The Diccionario de Autoridades says that it was then a large bread of more than two pounds, as villages baked it, and that the older sense was bran bread for country people.[12] Terreros adds that the large loaf was baked in the oven.[13]

The Academy's 19th-century editions record two proverbs: a quien cuece y amasa, no hurtes hogaza, that one cannot cheat an expert in his own trade, and la hogaza no embaraza, that what is needed is never a burden.[14][15] Today the DLE defines it as a large bread of about one kilo, and bread containing some bran.[6] In western Cuba Pichardo records it for a half-orange-shaped loaf of any weight.[16]

Timeline

  • 1056 – first record, in a charter.[4][5]
  • 1237 – the surname Fogaza in a Latin charter.[3]
  • 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz's hogaças mal amassadas.[9][10]
  • c. 1422–1433 – the Alba Bible uses fogaça de pan.[3]
  • 1548 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.[17]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias describes the shepherds' hearth-baked loaf.[11]
  • 1817 – the Academy records the proverbs a quien cuece y amasa, no hurtes hogaza and la hogaza no embaraza.[18]
  • 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin focacius.[15]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A large round loaf of bread, weighing about a kilo: Partió la hogaza en rebanadas gruesas.[6][19][1]
  2. Bread of coarsely sifted flour containing some bran.[6][19]

Usage notes

Proverbs: a quien cuece y amasa, no hurtes hogaza and la hogaza no embaraza.[15]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 2836
  3. ^ 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. hogaza
  4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 968
  5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. fuego
  6. ^ 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. hogaza
  7. ^ 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, 62
  8. ^ 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 Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. s.v. hogaza
  10. ^ 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. hogaza
  11. ^ 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. 985
  12. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 164
  13. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 299
  14. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 390
  15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 571
  16. ^ Pichardo, Esteban (1875), Diccionario provincial casi-razonado de vozes y frases cubanas, 4th ed., La Habana: Imprenta El Trabajo, p. 195
  17. ^ 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. hogaza
  18. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 472
  19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hogaza

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Hogaza.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/hogaza. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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