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junquillo

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word junquillo

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1536–1541 Motolinía, Historia de los Indios de la Nueva España More words from the 16th century
Ultimate origin
Latin iuncus
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin iūncus
Spanish junco
Spanish junquillo
From the same root
Latin iuncata ← iūncus

Pronunciation

  • /xunˈkiʝo/, [xũŋˈki.ʝo], /xunˈkiʎo/[1]

Forms

junquillo m (plural junquillos)[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish junco1 (“reed, rush”) + -illo, a diminutive.[2][1][3] junco is iuncus (“reed, rush”), which de Vaan traces to *joiniko-.[4][5]

Spanish lent the word to Catalan as jonquillo, to French as jonquille (1596) and to Italian as giunchiglia.[3][1] Through French it gave the English word jonquil in the 1660s, so called from the shape of its leaves.[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Junquello occurs as a personal name in a charter of 1192, but the DCECH's first record of the word is in Oudin's dictionary.[3] The CDH's earliest hit is in Motolinía's history of New Spain (1536–1541), for a rush that grows green in the water around Mexico City and serves as fodder.[7] In 1549 a letter from La Paz uses it for a similar fodder grass.[8]

Semantic evolution

In the poets of the late 16th century, Ercilla and Lope de Vega, the junquillo is a garden flower beside the lily, the rose and the narcissus.[7] Covarrubias in 1611 called it a fragrant kind of narcissus, named for its smooth stem without knots.[9] Autoridades (1734) added the architectural sense, a small round moulding about a finger thick, named for its likeness to a rush.[10] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 also gave it as a name for the rattan palm, the junco de Indias.[11] In the Canaries it is a fine rush of marshy ground.[12] In the Caribbean it is a thin gold chain that women wear round the neck, and in the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Chile a long round cane used to finish woven chair seats.[13][14][15]

Timeline

  • 1192 – Junquello as a personal name in a charter.[3]
  • 1536–1541 – Motolinía uses junquillo for a water rush in Mexico.[7]
  • 1578 – Ercilla lists junquillos among the flowers of a garden in La Araucana.[7]
  • 1596 – French jonquille, from Spanish.[3]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias describes it as a fragrant narcissus.[9]
  • 1660s – English jonquil, through French.[6]
  • 1734 – Autoridades records the moulding in architecture.[10]
  • 1817 – the Academy also gives it as a name of the rattan.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. (botany) The jonquil (Narcissus jonquilla): a garden narcissus (narciso) with very fragrant yellow flowers and a smooth stem like a rush.[2][16][1]
  2. The rattan palm (ratán).[2][16]
  3. (architecture) A round moulding thinner than a bocel.[2]
  4. (Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Chile) A long round cane (bejuco) used to finish seats woven of straw.[14]
  5. (Caribbean) A thin gold chain worn round the neck.[13][15]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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. junquillo
  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, 538
  4. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. junco
  5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  6. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
  7. ^ 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. junquillo
  8. ^ 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. junquillo
  9. ^ 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
  10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 331
  11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 510
  12. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. junquillo
  13. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 649
  14. ^ 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. junquillo
  15. ^ 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. junquillo
  16. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. junquillo
Cite this entry

“Junquillo.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/junquillo. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·