jardinero

Forms

jardinero m (plural jardineros, feminine jardinera, feminine plural jardineras)^[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish jardín + -ero, the agent noun of the garden.^[1][2] Corominas gives it under jardín, with the first record in Nebrija, the same date as the noun.^[3][4]

The base noun is from French jardin, a Romance diminutive of Old French jart (“kitchen garden”), which comes from Frankish *gard (“enclosure, hedge”).^[3][4] Corominas calls it a deeply rooted Gallicism that entered Spanish late: in the Middle Ages huerto was used for “garden”, as Latin hortus was in Latin.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nebrija's Spanish–Latin vocabulary of about 1495 defines the jardinero as the one who tends the garden, and gives Latin topiarius for it.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 describes gardeners who clip myrtle and rosemary into castles, ships, armed men and animals, the art that he calls topiaria.^[6] The Diccionario de Autoridades defines the gardener as the one who cultivates and dresses the garden, with Latin hortulanus, and quotes Calderón.^[7] From 1817 the Academy defined the word as one who looks after a garden “by trade” and gave it a feminine.^[8] Domínguez added the feminine sense “the gardener's wife” in 1846, which the DLE still lists as colloquial and rare.^[9][10]

In baseball Spanish of Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and Colombia the word means an outfielder, a sense the Puerto Rican Tesoro explains as an adaptation of English fielder.^[11][12][13] A Mexican newspaper used it for a baseball player in 1984.^[14] In Argentina and Uruguay jardinero is a pair of dungarees, and in El Salvador it is jocularly a married woman's lover.^[11][15]

Timeline

• c. 1495 – Nebrija records jardinero and jardinería.^[3][4][5]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas, in a Mexico City vocabulary that glosses xuchipixqui as jardinero.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the gardener's topiary art.^[6]
• 1614 – a document from Charcas mentions a jardinero mayor del rey “the king's head gardener” in Madrid.^[14]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it with a quotation from Calderón.^[7]
• 1817 – the Academy defines it as a gardener by trade.^[8]
• 1984 – a Mexico City newspaper uses it for a baseball outfielder.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A gardener: a person who looks after and cultivates a garden as a job.^[10][1][15]
2. (baseball, Mexico, Central America, Caribbean, Colombia) An outfielder, a player who catches balls hit beyond the infield.^[11][1][12]
3. (Argentina, Uruguay) dungarees: trousers with a bib and braces.^[11][15]
4. (El Salvador, jocular) A married woman's lover.^[11]

Word family

• jardinería

Related words

• jardín
• huerto
• French jardinier

Usage notes

The feminine jardinera also names a stand or fixed trough for growing plants, an open four-wheeled horse carriage, the open trailer once drawn by a tram, and the bus that carries passengers between the aircraft and the airport terminal.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. jardinero
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 496
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. jardín
5. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 365
6. ^ 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. 1011
7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 317
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 506
9. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1026
10. ^ a b c 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. jardinero
11. ^ a b c d e Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. jardinero
12. ^ 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. jardinero
13. ^ 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. jardinero
14. ^ a b c d 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. jardinero
15. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. jardinero