honda

Forms

honda f (plural hondas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote fonda (Berceo, Juan Ruiz); honda appears in Alonso de Palencia and Nebrija.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish fonda, inherited from Latin funda (“sling”).^[2][3][4][1] The same Latin word gave Galician fonda, Asturian fonda, Catalan fona and Old French fonde, whose modern form fronde has an unexplained ⟨r⟩.^[5][6] Spanish later borrowed the French word as fronda, a sling-shaped bandage.^[2] The Old Spanish ⟨f⟩ gave way to ⟨h⟩, and Alonso de Palencia and Nebrija already have the modern spelling.^[2]

The Late Latin sense “bag” of the same word gave the separate Spanish noun funda “case, cover”, recorded from 1335.^[7] De Vaan suggests that the Latin noun may go back to Proto-Indo-European *bʰondʰ-h₂- (“strap”), from the root *bʰendʰ- (“to bind”), or else be a loanword from an unknown language, perhaps the same one that gave Ancient Greek σφενδόνη (sphendónē, “sling”).^[8][1] Covarrubias repeated the ancient derivation from fundō (“to pour, hurl”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is fonda in Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora (stanza 34).^[2][3] Alfonso X's Estoria de España (1270–1284) tells how King Ambiorix had small clay pots filled with embers and burning tar thrown con fondas into the enemy's tents.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias (1611) calls the sling the shepherds' own weapon, recalls David's victory over Goliath, and mentions the ancient companies of slingers.^[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades describes its construction in detail and notes that it was once a weapon of war, typical of the Majorcans, and was then used by shepherds to guide the flock and scare off wolves, and by boys to throw stones.^[11] The Academy's dictionary of 1843 adds the nautical and engineering sense of a rope joined at its ends to hoist heavy loads.^[12]

In much of Latin America honda also names the forked slingshot with a rubber band (tirachinas), and Chilean criminal slang uses it for a shotgun.^[13][4]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – Berceo's Milagros have fonda.^[2][3]
• 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España tells of fire hurled con fondas.^[10]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz uses fonda.^[2]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia has honda and the derivative hondero.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses honda para tirar as Latin funda.^[14]
• 1532 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico, of the slings carried by native warriors.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias calls it the shepherds' weapon.^[9]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the rope sling for hoisting loads.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy records the borrowed fronda.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A sling: a strip of leather or a plait of wool, hemp or esparto used to hurl stones.^[4][1]
2. A rope for hoisting or suspending a heavy object.^[4][12]
3. (Argentina, Uruguay and much of Latin America) A slingshot (tirachinas): El niño apuntó con la honda a la lata.^[4][13][1]
4. (Chile, criminal slang) A shotgun.^[13]

Word family

• hondada
• hondero
• hondear

Related words

• funda
• fronda
• Catalan fona

Usage notes

Honda is also the feminine of the adjective hondo “deep”, which has a separate source, Latin profundus.^[2] Old texts sometimes write onda “wave” with ⟨h⟩, so that many early corpus hits for hondas mean waves of the sea.^[16]

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 j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 381
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. honda
4. ^ 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. honda
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 2971
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 311
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 c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 989
10. ^ a b 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. honda
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 171
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 392
13. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. honda
14. ^ 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. honda
15. ^ 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. honda
16. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. honda