hoyo

Forms

hoyo m (plural hoyos)^[1]

Etymology

It is from Spanish hoya, first as Old Spanish foyo.^[2][3][4] Corominas takes it from the feminine noun as a form felt as smaller, on the model of pairs such as pozo and poza or charco and charca; because people had more occasion to speak of holes than of hollows, the masculine is recorded earlier than the feminine.^[3] The DLE and Moliner also derive it from the feminine.^[2][5] Wiktionary instead takes it straight from Latin fovea (“pit”), with a change of gender, or from a Vulgar Latin *foveum.^[1]

The feminine, Old Spanish foya, probably comes from the same Latin word.^[3][4] The same Latin word is Portuguese fojo, Galician foxo, Asturian fueyu and Catalan foia.^[1][6][7] Cunha calls the origin of the Portuguese word disputed.^[8] De Vaan leaves the origin of the Latin word open; he rejects a link with Ancient Greek χειά (kheiá, “serpent's den”) and doubts one with favissae (“underground chambers”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is foyo in a charter of 981, followed by several other early charters.^[3][4] In the Psalter translated by Herman the German (c. 1240–1272) the one who digs a pit cayó en el foyo que obró “fell into the pit that he had made”.^[10] Alfonso X's Lapidario uses foyos for the hollows in a stone.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Hoya usually names a larger hollow, often a feature of the landscape, and hoyo a smaller one.^[3] Alfonso de Palencia (1490) already used foyo for the pits left on the face by smallpox, and Covarrubias (1611) records both that use and the proverb hacer un hoyo para tapar otro, said of someone who pays one debt by running up a bigger one.^[3][12] The Diccionario de Autoridades added the sense “grave”.^[13] The Academy's dictionary of 1869 has the proverb el muerto al hoyo y el vivo al bollo, which says that the living must go on eating and working after a death.^[14]

The word now also names the holes of a golf course and children's games of throwing coins or marbles into a hole in the ground.^[5][15] In the Dominican Republic the word also means a hard situation, and in several American countries the word is also vulgar for the anus or the vulva.^[16][17]

Timeline

• 981 – foyo in a charter.^[3][4]
• c. 1240–1272 – foyo “pit” in Herman the German's Psalter.^[10]
• 1250–1279 – foyos in Alfonso X's Lapidario.^[11]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia uses foyo for smallpox scars.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives hoio o hoia, Latin scrobs and fossa.^[18]
• 1519 – first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records hacer un hoyo para tapar otro.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from hoya.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hole or pit in the ground: Los niños abrieron un hoyo en la arena.^[2][1]
2. A hollow or dent in a surface, as a flaw.^[2]
3. A grave (sepultura): the pit dug for a body, or the place where it lies.^[2]
4. A dimple (hoyuelo) in the chin or cheek.^[2]
5. (golf) A hole, and each section of play ending at one: Ganó el torneo en el último hoyo.^[1][15]
6. (Dominican Republic) A hard situation with no easy way out.^[16][17]

Word family

• hoyito
• hoyoso
• hoyuelo

Related words

• hoya
• Latin fovea

Usage notes

Hoyo negro is the word for a black hole in Costa Rica, Cuba, Mexico and Puerto Rico.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. hoyo
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 405
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hoya
5. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hoyo
6. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. foia
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. fovea
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1585
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ 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. hoyo
11. ^ 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. hoyo
12. ^ 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. 986
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. hoyo
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 420
15. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. hoyo
16. ^ a b 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. hoyo
17. ^ 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. hoyo
18. ^ 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. hoyo
19. ^ 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. hoyo
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 538