hueso

Forms

hueso m (plural huesos)^[1] Old Spanish wrote huesso, uesso and vesso;^[2][1][3] Berceo has uesso.^[4][5][6] The popular pronunciation güeso is written in a Puebla document of 1549, and Asturian has güesu.^[2][1][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin ossum, through Old Spanish huesso, a popular variant of the classical Latin os (“bone”).^[5][7][1] The Romance languages kept only the popular form, which Corominas says was frequent in Latin from the 4th century; de Vaan and the OLD find it already in the poet Accius.^[5][8][9] The same word is Romanian os, Italian osso, French os, Catalan os and Portuguese osso.^[10][1]

Lanchetas explains Berceo's form uesso by the regular diphthongisation of the stressed vowel, and the ⟨h⟩ is only a spelling.^[11][5] Corominas takes Juan Ruiz's spelling with ⟨f⟩ and Nebrija's with ⟨h⟩ as signs of the influence of huesa “grave”, which comes from fossa.^[5]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *ost and Proto-Indo-European *h₃ésth₁ (“bone”), and is related to Ancient Greek ὀστέον (ostéon).^[8][1] De Vaan reconstructs the root with either vowel grade, and reports the view that the Latin nominative was remade with an added -s.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Fuero de Madrid (in a copy of the first half of the 13th century) already has the Romance word huesso inside its Latin text.^[6][4] The first record in a text of its own time is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–1250), with a heading on wounds with a broken bone, Delas llagas de huesso quebrado.^[6] Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (c. 1236) describes a sick woman who had los uessos ... solos, cubiertos de pellejo “only her bones, covered with skin”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

The sense “stone of a fruit” is peculiar to Castilian among the Romance languages (Portuguese says caroço, Catalan pinyol); Corominas finds it in Nebrija, but an Alfonsine text of 1256 already speaks of los huessos de las olivas “olive stones”.^[5][12][13] The Academy's 1884 dictionary adds the unburnt pieces of limestone sifted from lime, and the figurative “something that causes work or trouble”, especially a hard job.^[14] Today the word also names a worthless thing, a disagreeable person and a strict teacher, and the plural means a person's remains; as an adjective it names an off-white colour.^[7]

In Mexico and Central America hueso means a job, especially a post in the public service obtained through influence.^[15][16][17] Wiktionary explains the political sense by the image of a dog that seeks and guards a bone.^[1] Phrases include la sin hueso “the tongue”, which Corominas dates from the Academy's 19th-century editions, and a otro perro con ese hueso “try that on someone else” in the Quijote.^[5][18]

Timeline

• 1158–1202 – the Romance word huesso inside the Latin text of the Fuero de Madrid.^[4][6]
• 1218–1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes, the first record in a contemporary manuscript.^[6][19]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo has the form uesso.^[12][5]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it of broken bones.^[13]
• 1256 – an Alfonsine text speaks of olive stones.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records the sense “fruit stone”.^[5][12]
• 1549 – first record from the Americas, in Puebla, spelt güeso.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the Latin etymon and the figurative sense “hard job”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bone: each of the hard pieces that make up the skeleton of vertebrates: Se rompió un hueso de la muñeca.^[7][1]
2. The stone or pit: the hard part in the middle of some fruits, such as olives, cherries and peaches, that holds the seed.^[7][1]
3. Something that causes work or trouble.^[7]
4. Something useless, of little value and poor quality.^[7]
5. (colloquial) A person with a disagreeable character or difficult to deal with.^[7][1]
6. (colloquial) A very demanding teacher: El de química es un hueso, suspende a medio curso.^[7]
7. (Mexico, Central America) A job, especially a public post obtained through influence.^[7][15][1]
8. (Ecuador) A stingy person.^[7]
9. (plural) A person's mortal remains.^[7]
10. (adjective) Of a yellowish-white colour: unos zapatos color hueso.^[7]

Word family

• desosar
• sobrehueso
• quebrantahuesos
• huesudo
• sinhueso

Related words

• óseo
• ososo
• osamenta
• osario
• Latin os
• Portuguese osso

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. güeso
3. ^ a b Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. güesu
4. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. hueso
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 420
6. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. hueso
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. hueso
8. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 408
12. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. hueso
13. ^ a b c 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. hueso
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 578
15. ^ 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. hueso
16. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 335
17. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 473
18. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 612
19. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. hueso