lancha

Forms

lancha f (plural lanchas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Portuguese lancha, which is from Malay lancar (“quick, nimble”).^[2][3][4][1] The Portuguese brought the word from the East: it first appears about 1540 in the Peregrinação of Mendes Pinto as the name of a small, fast boat used by pirates in the seas of India and the Malay archipelago.^[4] Cunha also gives a 16th-century Portuguese variant lanchara, which Corominas, after Skeat and Dalgado, derives from lancaran, a derivative of the Malay adjective; he explains the loss of the last syllable by the Malay stress on the first.^[4][5] Houaiss dates the Portuguese boat name to 1513.^[6]

Corominas lists it among the ship names that the Portuguese brought from the East, like junco and jangada.^[4] It passed from Portugal to Spain.^[4] From both countries it spread to Italian lancia, Catalan llanxa, French lanche (1678) and English launch (1681).^[4] He rejects the derivation from Latin lancea (“lance”) in the REW and in Vidos, which García de Diego follows through Italian, and Meyer-Lübke's identification of the boat with the flat stone (see Usage notes).^[4][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a letter of 1587 by an admiral of the Spanish Armada.^[4][3] Boyd-Bowman has earlier records from the Americas: una lancha de 9 bancos “a launch with nine rowing benches” in Venezuela in 1569, and an English pirate lancha off Peru in 1570.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The Diccionario de Autoridades defined the word as a small boat, usually rowed, which ships use to take things on and off.^[9] The Academy's 19th-century editions described it as the strongest of a ship's boats, used to raise the anchors and carry heavy loads, and listed armed lanchas carrying a mortar or a gun.^[10][11] With steam and the motor the word came to mean any small powered boat: in Mexico it was a boat driven by petrol or electricity, used on rivers and as a tug, and Bénaben notes that Spanish uses lancha with a qualifier for many kinds of craft, as in lancha neumática “inflatable boat”.^[12][13][2] In Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela and Central America the plural is a joking word for big feet and big shoes, and in Colombia it is a luxury car.^[14] The word took root most firmly in Galicia, among the fishermen of Pontevedra.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1540 – Mendes Pinto uses Portuguese lancha for a fast boat of the Far East.^[4]
• 1569 – the first Spanish record, in Venezuela.^[8]
• 1587 – Corominas's first record, in a letter of an admiral of the Armada.^[4][3]
• 1678 – first record of French lanche, in Bayonne.^[4]
• 1681 – English launch appears in a travel narrative.^[4]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the ship's boat.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A launch: a large sail and oar boat, or a steam or motor boat, used to help with heavy work on ships and to carry cargo and passengers within harbours or along the coast.^[2][1]
2. The largest of the boats that a big ship carries for its own service.^[2]
3. A small open rowing boat.^[2]
4. A small boat for crossing rivers, or for fishing and other work at sea: Cruzamos el río en una lancha de motor.^[2][1]
5. (hunting) A trap made of small sticks and a stone for catching partridges.^[2]
6. (colloquial, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Venezuela, Central America; usually plural) A very big foot; a big shoe.^[14]

Word family

• lanchada
• lanchero
• lanchón
• lanchaje

Related words

• Portuguese lancha
• English launch

Usage notes

Lancha “flat stone” is a separate word (the DLE's lancha¹, the BDELC's lancha I), a dialect word of the west and north of Spain, recorded in a Burgos document of 1232; its origin is uncertain, perhaps a dissimilated *llancha from Vulgar Latin *plancula, a diminutive of Latin planca (“board, slab”).^[15][3][2] Corominas assigns to this stone word the partridge trap of a stone and sticks, which the DLE lists under the boat.^[15][2] A third lancha of Ecuador, from Quechua lancha, is a fungus that attacks plants, especially the potato; in Colombia and Ecuador it is the late blight of the potato and the tomato.^[2][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. lancha
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lancha
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 373
5. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1996
6. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. lancha
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3742
8. ^ a b 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. lancha
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 358
10. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 428
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 455
12. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 655
13. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. lancha
14. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. lancha
15. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 372