legumbre

Forms

legumbre f (plural legumbres)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin legūmen (“pulse, leguminous plant”), continued through its oblique stem.^[2][3][4][1] Wiktionary and Gómez de Silva start from an accusative *legūmine(m), formed by analogy, since the Latin neuter had an accusative like its nominative.^[1][5] The same Latin word is Portuguese legume, Galician legume, Asturian llegume, Catalan llegum, Occitan legum, French légume, Italian legume and Romanian legumă.^[6][7][8] Corominas points out that only Spanish made it feminine; it is masculine in the other languages, also in the western ones, except for Romanian and some modern dialects of western and south-eastern France, which he thinks agree only by chance.^[2]

The Latin noun is usually connected with legō (“to gather, pick”) and the suffix -men: Varro said legumes were so called because they are picked by hand and not cut.^[9][10] Wiktionary calls the origin uncertain, since the link vowel /uː/ is unexplained, and does not exclude a loan from another language.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the CDH is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), in the story of Daniel: que non les diesse a comer sinon legumbre e agua a bever “that he should give them nothing to eat but pulse, and water to drink”.^[11][12] The HSMS dates its copy of the text to 1211.^[13] The BDELC dates the word from about 1280, and the DCECH from Alonso de Palencia (1490), both later than the corpus.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th century the word already meant the pulses sown and stored beside grain: Alfonso X's Estoria de España has trigo. & ordio. & mijo. & legumbres “wheat, barley, millet and pulses”.^[11][14] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as any plant whose fruit or seed grows in pods, such as chickpeas, lentils and beans, and Autoridades added that some extended it to garden vegetables.^[10][15] The Academy accepted that wider sense “by extension” in 1843.^[16] Terreros recorded a joking use of the word for lay brothers (legos).^[17] Alemany in 1917 noted that in southern Chile it meant any stew of pulses, fresh or dry.^[18] In the Canaries it was long masculine: otros legumbres (1676).^[19] Today the DLE gives the pod fruit or seed, a garden vegetable and, in botany, the fruit of leguminous plants.^[4]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy).^[11]
• 1251 – the Calila e Dimna speaks of sowing legunbres (in a later copy).^[11]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España uses the plural legumbres.^[11][14]
• c. 1280 – the BDELC's first record.^[3]
• 1490 – Alonso de Palencia, the DCECH's first record, already with the feminine.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija renders it by Latin legumen.^[20]
• 1579 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico, spelt lecumbres.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it and repeats Varro's etymology.^[10]
• 1676 – the masculine otros legumbres in the Canaries.^[19]
• 1843 – the Academy extends it to all garden vegetables.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A fruit or seed that grows in pods (vaina); a legume, pulse: En invierno comemos muchas legumbres.^[4][22][1]
2. A plant grown in kitchen gardens; a vegetable.^[4][1]
3. (botany) The fruit of the leguminous plants (leguminoso).^[4][22]

Related words

• leguminoso
• Latin legumen
• Portuguese legume

Usage notes

Legumbre is feminine in Spanish, unlike the masculine words of the other Romance languages; older Canarian texts use it as a masculine.^[2][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 626
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. legumbre
4. ^ a b c d e 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. legumbre
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. legumbre
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. legumen
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 421
8. ^ 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. 5, 135
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. legūmen
10. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1074
11. ^ 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. legumbre
12. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. legumbre
13. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. legumbre
14. ^ 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. legumbre
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 380
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 434
17. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 434
18. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1018
19. ^ a b c 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. legumbre
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 370
21. ^ 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. lecumbre
22. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. legumbre