línea

Forms

línea f (plural líneas)^[1] The inherited form was Old Spanish liña (also spelt linna, lina), still used in the Canaries and Galicia; popular speech also says linia.^[2][3][1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin līnea (“linen thread, string; line, stroke”), a learned word that replaced the inherited liña.^[2][4][5][1] The popular form is recorded from a charter of 1148, in the sense “fishing line”, and in the Middle Ages also meant “line of descent”.^[2] Corominas finds the learned form first in Alfonso de Palencia (1490); it is not yet in Nebrija, is in Covarrubias and Don Quixote, and became general from then on.^[2][4] The CDH has it earlier in an Aragonese text, the legal code Vidal Mayor (c. 1250).^[3]

The same Latin word is Portuguese linha, Galician liña, Asturian llinia, Catalan línia beside the older llinya, French ligne and Italian linea.^[1][6][7] linaje comes from the same Latin word, but Corominas takes it from Catalan llinatge.^[2]

līnea is the feminine of līneus (“of flax, linen”), used as a noun, and comes from līnum (“flax, linen”).^[5][8][1] līnum goes back to Proto-Italic *līno-; its cognates include Ancient Greek λίνον (línon, “linen”) and words for “flax” in Baltic and Slavic.^[8] Wiktionary gives Proto-Indo-European *līno- (“flax”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Vidal Mayor (c. 1250) the word means a line of writing: the scribe's subscription must state a quoántas líneas es aqueill interlinio “after how many lines that interlineation stands”.^[3] The popular linna of the same period had concrete senses: a line in a geometrical figure, a stripe in a stone, a line of kinship and a cord.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Medieval liña meant “descent”, as in the Primera crónica general: descendié por linna de generación “he descended in the line of generation”.^[2][9] The learned línea took over these senses from the 16th century.^[2] The Academy's dictionary of 1843 lists the geometrical line, a stripe, a class or kind, the equator, ancestry, a limit, a trench, a twelfth of an inch and troops drawn up in battle order.^[10] From the 1899 edition the unit of length is about two millimetres.^[11]

Later senses include a transport or telephone service, the slim figure of a person (guardar la línea), a line of conduct and the wires of an electric line.^[5][12] In much of Latin America línea is also a line of cocaine and a fishing line.^[13] In the Spanish of the United States it also means a queue, after English line.^[14] Tagalog borrowed the word as linya.^[1]

Timeline

• 1148 – the inherited liña “fishing line” in a charter.^[2]
• c. 1250 – líneas in the Vidal Mayor, the first hit for the learned form in the CDH.^[3]
• c. 1250 – the Setenario has liña.^[2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has linna for a line and a stripe.^[9]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia uses línea, Corominas's date for the learned form.^[2][4]
• 1515 – first record in the Americas, of the equator.^[15]
• 1843 – the Academy records the equator, ancestry and military senses.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. (geometry) A line, a continuous and unbounded succession of points.^[5][1]
2. (historical) An old unit of length of about two millimetres.^[5][1]
3. A stripe or mark on a body.^[5]
4. Shape, outline or silhouette: un coche de línea muy deportiva.^[5]
5. A slender, well-proportioned figure: Hace ejercicio para no perder la línea.^[5]
6. A line of conduct.^[5][1]
7. The direction, trend or style of an art or a field of knowledge.^[5]
8. A limit or boundary.^[5]
9. A line of writing, a renglón.^[5]
10. A row of people or things, one behind or beside another.^[5]
11. In bingo, a horizontal row of numbers on a card, and the prize for completing it first.^[5]
12. In painting, the drawing, as opposed to the colour.^[5]
13. The wires or cables that carry an electric current, a telegraph or a telephone connection.^[5][1]
14. A regular transport or communication service: una línea de autobuses.^[12]
15. (Latin America, slang) A line of cocaine.^[13][1]
16. (United States) A queue.^[14][1]

Word family

• lineal
• alinear
• alineación
• delinear
• delineante
• entrelínea
• lineamiento
• aerolínea
• tiralíneas

Related words

• linear
• aliñar
• linaje
• lino
• Latin līnea
• Portuguese linha
• Catalan línia

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 661
3. ^ 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. línea
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. línea
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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. línea
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. linea
7. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 4, 958
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. linum
9. ^ a b c 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. línea
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 441
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 605
12. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. línea
13. ^ 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. línea
14. ^ a b Moreno-Fernández, Francisco (2018), Diccionario de anglicismos del español estadounidense (Informes del Observatorio 037-01/2018SP), Cambridge, Mass.: Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University, p. 69
15. ^ 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. lignia