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jarabe

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word jarabe

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1270 Historia troyana en prosa y verso More words from the 13th century
Borrowed from
Arabic شراب via Old Spanish
Ultimate origin
Arabic شراب

Pronunciation

  • /xaˈɾabe/, [xaˈɾa.β̞e][1]

Forms

jarabe m (plural jarabes)[1] Old Spanish wrote xarabe;[2] axarabe is found in Venegas (1537) and Covarrubias, and Nebrija has xarafe.[3] A variant xarope was common from the 13th century (the Calila), with axarope in the Escorial glossary and the Cancionero de Baena; it survives as jarope.[3][2] Regional forms include jarupe and julupe in Andalusia and charape in Mexico.[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish xarabe, borrowed from Andalusian Arabic شراب (šaráb), from Arabic شراب (šarāb, “drink, potion; syrup”).[5][1][2][6] The Arabic noun is derived from شرب (šariba, “to drink”), and it was very common in the sense “syrup” in Arabic writers from the 11th century on.[3][7][8] Nebrija's variant xarafe reflects a popular pronunciation of the Arabic final /b/ as /f/.[3]

The variant xarope is the form shared with the other Romance languages: Portuguese xarope, Catalan xarop, Occitan eissarop, Italian sciroppo, French sirop and Medieval Latin siruppus.[3][6] The Academy, Américo Castro and Neuvonen trace its stressed /o/ to another Arabic form of the root, which mainly means “brackish water”.[3] Corominas rejects this and follows Steiger, who explains the /o/ by the influence of the /r/ before it and the /b/ after it.[3] The French word is the source of the later Spanish loan sirope, a doublet of this word.[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Historia troyana en prosa y verso, of about 1270 (in a mid-14th-century copy), where the wounded Hector is given a xarabe to drink.[3][10] The medical texts of the 15th century use it for a sweet medicinal drink: xarabe acetoso and xarabe de ribes in Velasco de Taranto's treatise on the plague of 1410.[10]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija, about 1495, has xarafe de medicina with the Latin potio.[11] Covarrubias in 1611 describes it as the sweet drink brought from the apothecary's for a sick person and derives it from Latin sirupus.[12] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) defines it as a sweet medicinal drink made by apothecaries to the thickness of syrup, named after its ingredients (xarabe de violetas, rosado), and adds the figurative sense of any drink that is too sweet.[13] The phrase ser todo jarabe de pico, of someone who says what he will not do, is in the Academy's dictionary of 1843.[14] Today jarabe de pico means empty talk and broken promises, and jarabe de palo a beating as punishment.[5][15]

In Mexico the word names a popular dance for couples, influenced by Spanish dances such as the jota: Salvá in 1846 compared it to the Spanish zapateado, and Alemany in 1917 records the jarabe gatuno and the jarabe gitano.[16][17][5] The DAMER records the dance in Mexico and Nicaragua, and in Mexico the jarabe tapatío, of Guadalajara, became the best-known one.[18][19]

Timeline

  • c. 1270 – xarabe in the Historia troyana en prosa y verso.[3][10]
  • 13th century – the variant xarope in the Calila e Dimna.[3]
  • 1410 – xarabe in Velasco de Taranto's treatise on the plague, the first hit in the CDH from an original manuscript.[10]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija has the form xarafe.[11][3]
  • 1512 – first record in the Americas, jarabe de arrayán among medicines in Puerto Rico.[20]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias records xarave and xarope.[12]
  • 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines xarabe.[13]
  • 1846 – Salvá records the Mexican dance.[16]
  • 1884 – the Academy gives the Arabic etymology for the first time.[21]

Meanings

Noun

  1. syrup: a drink made by boiling sugar in water until it thickens, with fruit juices or medicinal substances added.[5][1]
  2. A thick, sweet liquid medicine (medicamento): Le dieron un jarabe contra la tos.[15][22][1]
  3. Any drink that is far too sweet.[5][15]
  4. (Mexico, Nicaragua) A popular dance for couples, influenced by Spanish dances such as the jota, and its music.[5][18][15]
  5. (colloquial) jarabe de pico: empty words, promises that will not be kept.[5]
  6. (colloquial) jarabe de palo: a beating as a deterrent or punishment.[5][15]

Word family

  • jarabear
  • jarope
  • sirope
  • Arabic شراب (šarāb)

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 353
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 498
  4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. xarab
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. jarabe
  6. ^ a b Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. jarabe
  7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. jarabe
  8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. jarabe
  9. ^ 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. sirope
  10. ^ 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. jarabe
  11. ^ 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. jarabe
  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. 1396
  13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 535
  14. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 418
  15. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. jarabe
  16. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 632
  17. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 979
  18. ^ 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. jarabe
  19. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (2001), Diccionario breve de mexicanismos, México: Academia Mexicana / Fondo de Cultura Económica, p. 115
  20. ^ 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. jarabe
  21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 613
  22. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. jarabe

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Jarabe.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/jarabe. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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