junio

Forms

junio m (plural junios)^[1] Old Spanish texts also write iunio, juynio, juynno and junjo.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin Iūnius (“June”), the name of the month.^[3][4][5] Wiktionary calls it probably semi-learned.^[1] The Latin word is the adjective of Iūnō (“Juno”), the goddess, used with mēnsis (“month”) or alone.^[6][1] Bénaben finds the origin not fully clear, and the DHLF also reports a link with the name of Lucius Junius Brutus, the first consul.^[7][8]

The popular outcomes of the Latin word are Portuguese junho, Asturian xunu, Aragonese chunio, Catalan juny, French juin and Italian giugno.^[9][10][1] Corominas says that the western Ibero-Romance languages first used popular forms for June and July everywhere, as Portuguese still does, but that Castilian soon took the learned ones;^[3] Galician has wavered.^[3] In Galician and Asturian the names of June and July fell together, and Catalan and French avoided the clash with the diminutives juliol and juillet for July.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH's first record is a charter of 1211.^[3][4] An early literary use personifies the month: the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in a 15th-century copy) says Madurava don junio las miesses e los prados “Sir June ripened the crops and the meadows”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has not changed: the sixth month of the year.^[5] The Diccionario de Autoridades noted that it was the fourth month of the oldest Roman year, and explained the name from the iuniores, the younger men to whom it was dedicated.^[12] Covarrubias in 1611 gave the same explanation, citing Ovid, and also derived it from Juno, from iungere “to join”, or from Junius Brutus.^[13] Monlau in 1856 still listed these three views.^[14] The Spanish word passed into the languages of the Philippines, for example Tagalog Hunyo.^[1]

Timeline

• 1211 – first record, in a charter.^[3][4]
• 1225 – a charter still dates in Latin, in mense iunio.^[11]
• 1240–1250 – don junio ripens the crops in the Libro de Alexandre.^[11]
• 1256 – Alfonso X's Picatrix has enel mes de iunio & de julio.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: Junio mes. iunius.^[16]
• 1552 – the first record in the Americas, in Puebla: el día de San Juan de junio.^[17]
• 1611 – Covarrubias collects the old etymologies of the name.^[13]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “from Latin iunius”.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. June: the sixth month of the year, which has 30 days.^[5][1]

Related words

• julio
• Portuguese junho
• Latin Iūnius

Usage notes

Like the other month names, junio is written with a small letter and is masculine.^[1][5] The abbreviation is jun.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 538
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. junio
5. ^ a b c d 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. junio
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. junio
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. juin
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. jūnius
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. junius
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 331
13. ^ 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. 1026
14. ^ Monlau, Pedro Felipe (1856), Diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana (ensayo), Madrid: Imprenta de la Sociedad Literaria y Tipográfica, p. 310
15. ^ 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. junio
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 365
17. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 620