huracán

Forms

huracán m (plural huracanes)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Taíno *hurakā (“hurricane”), a word of the Taíno of Hispaniola.^[2][3][4][1] Fernández de Oviedo states that it was a word of the Indians of Haiti, and Pedro Mártir de Anglería and Las Casas also call it an Indian word.^[2] Las Casas says it was stressed on the last syllable.^[2] Corominas reads the initial ⟨h⟩ as aspirated: Pichardo heard his Dominican elders say ⟨juracán⟩, and Anglería's ⟨furacanes⟩ and the English ⟨furicanos⟩ of Hakluyt (1568) render the same sound.^[2] Gómez de Silva derives the Taíno word from hura (“wind; to blow”).^[5]

Its further origin is disputed.^[2] Chavero (1886) and later Lehmann-Nitsche (1924) linked it with the Maya god Hunrakan, “one his leg”, a one-legged deity of the weather in the Popol Vuh, and with the Carib evil spirit Iroucan recorded by Biet in 1664.^[2] Friederici found the borrowing from Maya unproven, following de Goeje, who related the Taíno word instead to Carib words for “storm” and “black, dark, night”.^[2]

From Spanish it spread to other languages: the English word hurricane (first in Richard Eden's Decades, 1550s), Portuguese furacão, Catalan furacá (dialectal, at Vinaròs) and Dutch orkaan, from which German Orkan was taken.^[6][2][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Oviedo's Sumario of 1526 explains it: quando el demonio los quiere espantar, promételes el huracán, que quiere dezir tempestad “when the devil wants to frighten them, he promises them the hurricane, which means storm”, one that throws down houses and uproots great trees.^[7][8][2] Anglería's Latin Decades had used the plural furacanes in 1510–15.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Sixteenth-century chroniclers use it for the great storms of the Indies by sea and by land: Las Casas tells how ships were lost in port con un huracán, Cieza de León (1553) and Pedro de Medina's Regimiento de navegación (1556) list it beside tempestades and tormentas.^[8] The form huracán has been the usual one since then.^[2] In Puerto Rico the spelling juracán appears in Melgarejo's Memoria of 1582.^[9]

The Academy's dictionary of 1884 calls it a Carib word and already adds the figurative “wind of extraordinary force”.^[10] Today it also names a disaster that destroys everything and a very impetuous person.^[4][11] In Chile huracán has been used for a large spring of water that suddenly bursts from a hillside.^[12]

Timeline

• 1510–15 – Pedro Mártir de Anglería writes furacanes in his Latin chronicle.^[2][3]
• 1526 – Fernández de Oviedo's Sumario has huracán in Spanish.^[7][2]
• 1546 – the first record in Boyd-Bowman's lexicon, from Santo Domingo.^[13]
• 1550s – the English word hurricane appears in Richard Eden's Decades.^[6]
• 1582 – the form juracán in Melgarejo's Memoria from Puerto Rico.^[9]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary records it as a Carib word.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hurricane: a very violent tropical wind that turns in great circles, widening as it moves away from the calm zones where it starts.^[4][1]
2. A wind of extraordinary force.^[4]
3. (figurative) An event that causes destruction or great harm.^[4][11]
4. (figurative) A very impetuous person: Su hermana entró en la cocina como un huracán.^[4][14]

Word family

• huracanado

Related words

• ciclón
• English hurricane

Usage notes

The phrase ojo del huracán “eye of the hurricane” is also used for the centre of a controversy.^[4][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 429
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. huracán
4. ^ 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. huracán
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 360
6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com, p. s.v. hurricane
7. ^ a b Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. huracán
8. ^ 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. huracán
9. ^ a b Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. huracán
10. ^ 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. 581
11. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. huracán
12. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 112
13. ^ 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. huracán
14. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. huracán