legra

Forms

legra f (plural legras)^[1] The Libro de los caballos (c. 1275) has both legra and légara, and the 15th-century translation of Lanfranc's surgery writes légara.^[2][3] In Asturias the clog-maker's tool is llegre, tsegra or llégara, and in Cantabria llegra.^[2][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin lĭgula (“spoon; small tongue”), by a semi-learned route.^[2][5][6][1] The Latin word meant first a spoon, and through its variant lingula also a little tongue, a narrow sword and other tongue-shaped tools;^[2] Corominas sees in these the source of the name of the curved blade.^[2]

The same word is Portuguese legra, recorded in 1318 for a surgeon's tool used to hollow out bone.^[2][7] The form Catalan alegra, found only in a 15th-century veterinary treatise, looks like a borrowing from Castilian.^[2] Carolina Michaëlis first proposed this etymology.^[2][7]

The Latin word was formed from the stem of lingō (“to lick”) with a diminutive suffix, and was also felt as a diminutive of lingua (“tongue”).^[8][2] Martial tells that the form without ⟨n⟩ was that of polite society and the form with ⟨n⟩ that of the uneducated.^[9][8]

The learned doublet is lígula (c. 1580), a term of anatomy and botany.^[2][5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Libro de los caballos (c. 1275), a veterinary treatise, prescribes treating a horse's hoof by scraping it underneath with a legra: catarle yuso en la palma con una legra, “examine it underneath, on the sole, with a legra”.^[3][10] The word belongs from the first to surgery and horse medicine, for a tool that scrapes tissue or bone.^[10]

Semantic evolution

From the 16th century the surgeons used the legra with the trepan to open the skull: Fragoso's surgery (1581), quoted in the Diccionario de Autoridades, names trépano y legras as the usual tools for piercing the skull.^[2][11] In 1566 the word also named the procedure of scraping itself, a use the DHLE explains by metonymy.^[10] The Academy defined it until 1869 as an iron instrument with two fine cutting edges, used by surgeons and farriers to lay bare and scrape the skull.^[12][13] The 1884 edition defined it simply as the instrument for scraping bone, with the verb legrar as its source.^[14] Alemany (1917) returned to the Latin ligula.^[15]

In medicine today the legra is a curette, with a spoon-shaped or loop-shaped cutting end, used above all to scrape the wall of the uterus or bone.^[16] In northern Spain the word names a different tool, a curved blade with a handle for hollowing wooden clogs (almadreñas) and carving wooden spoons and bowls; the DHLE first finds this sense in 1895, in Pereda's Peñas arriba.^[10][2][17] The Academy added it in the 2001 edition.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 1275 – the Libro de los caballos uses legra and légara for a farrier's scraping tool.^[3][2][10]
• c. 1451–1475 – the Castilian translation of Lanfranc's Cirugía mayor writes légara.^[3]
• 1566 – Arias de Benavides's Secretos uses the word for the scraping procedure.^[10][3]
• 1581 – Fragoso's surgery has legra and the verb legrar.^[2][5]
• 1592 – a surgical text printed in Mexico City tells how to thin the skull con la legra.^[19]
• 1611 – Rosal's dictionary and Covarrubias's Tesoro record the word.^[10]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as a surgeon's and farrier's iron tool.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy defines it as the instrument for legrar.^[14]
• 1895 – Pereda's Peñas arriba uses it for the clog-maker's knife.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A steel knife with a curved, sharp free end, used to carve and hollow wooden objects such as clogs (almadreñas), bowls and spoons; in carpentry also a card scraper.^[6][1][20]
2. (medicine) A curette: a surgical instrument with a sharp spoon- or loop-shaped end for scraping bone or the lining of the uterus: El cirujano pidió una legra más fina.^[6][16][1]

Word family

• legrar
• legrón

Related words

• lígula
• lengua
• Latin ligula
• Portuguese legra

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 625
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. legra
4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 3877
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. legra
6. ^ a b c 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. legra
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. legra
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 380
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 523
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 461
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 636
15. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1018
16. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. legra
17. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. legra
18. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. legra
19. ^ 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. legra
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. legra