lecho

Forms

lecho m (plural lechos)^[1] The charters spell it leito (a Leonese document of 1000), lieto (1090) and leycho (1125) before lecho appears in Berceo.^[2][3] Asturian has lleito, lleicho and llechu, Cantabrian llecho and Aragonese let.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lectus (“bed, couch”).^[2][3][6][1] The early spellings Old Spanish leito, lieto and leycho come before lecho in the records.^[2]

The same Latin word is Portuguese leito, Galician leito, Asturian llechu, Catalan llit, Occitan lèit, French lit and Italian letto; it survives in all the Romance languages except Romanian.^[7][4][2][1] In Sardinian, Catalan, Asturian and Portuguese it also names the floor of a cart.^[7]

The Latin word goes back to *lekto- and to the root Proto-Indo-European *legʰ- (“to lie down”), perhaps as a noun *legʰ-tu- “the lying” that later moved into the o-stems.^[8][1] Its cognates include Ancient Greek λέχος (lékhos, “bed”) and λέκτρον (léktron, “bed, marriage bed”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is a Leonese charter of the year 1000, with the spelling leito.^[2][3] In the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200) Laban puts Leah into Jacob's lecho on the wedding night,^[9] and the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) lets a widower keep his horse, his arms and the bed in which he first lay with his wife.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages lecho was a common, popular word; later it was confined to the literary language and became a vague, general term, closer to “place to lie” than to “bed”.^[2] Moliner and Vox mark it as formal: lecho conyugal, lecho de muerte rather than cama.^[10][11][12] Alfonso X's prose also used it for the bier on which the dead were carried, a sense the DLE now marks as obsolete, and caer en el lecho for falling ill.^[13][6]

Autoridades already calls layers of things laid one on another lechos.^[14] The Academy's 1817 edition added the floor of a cart, the bed of a river, the dining couch of the Romans and the bearing surface of a stone in masonry,^[15] and Alemany (1917) the sea floor and the geological stratum.^[16] The set phrase lecho de rosas means a comfortable, easy situation.^[6][1]

Timeline

• 1000 – a Leonese charter has the form leito.^[2][3]
• 1090 – lieto; 1125 – leycho, in charters.^[2]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has lecho, in a 13th-century copy.^[9]
• early 13th century – Berceo uses lecho.^[2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for a bed to rest and sleep on.^[13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin lectus and torus.^[17]
• 1532 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as the place where we lie down to sleep and rest.^[19]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the bed of a river and the floor of a cart.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin lectum.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. (formal) bed: Pasó la noche en vela junto al lecho del enfermo.^[6][1][11]
2. A place where animals lie down; litter.^[6][1]
3. The bed of a river, the ground over which its water runs; cauce.^[6][1]
4. The bottom of the sea or of a lake.^[6]
5. A layer of something spread out flat over something else: un lecho de paja.^[6][10]
6. The floor of a cart or wagon.^[6]
7. A couch on which the Romans and other ancient peoples reclined to eat.^[6]
8. (architecture) The surface of a stone on which another is set.^[6]
9. (geology) A stratum of sedimentary rock.^[6][1]
10. (obsolete) A bier for carrying the dead to burial.^[6]

Word family

• deslechar

Related words

• lechiga
• lechigada
• litera
• Latin lectus
• Portuguese leito
• Catalan llit

Usage notes

Set phrases include lecho de muerte “deathbed”, lecho de rosas “bed of roses” and abandonar el lecho “to get up”.^[6][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 616
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lecho
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 3819
5. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. llechu
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. lecho
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. lectus
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
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. lecho
10. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. lecho
11. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. lecho
12. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. lecho
13. ^ a b 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. lecho
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 375
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 521
16. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1016
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 370
18. ^ 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. lecho
19. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1072
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 634