loco

Forms

loco (feminine loca, masculine plural locos, feminine plural locas, superlative loquísimo)^[1] Asturian has llocu, with a variant llucu.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish loco, a word found only in Castilian and Portuguese, whose origin is uncertain.^[1] Corominas calls it obscure, perhaps Arabic.^[2][4] The DLE, Corriente and Wiktionary take it, with some hesitation, borrowed from Andalusian Arabic *láwqa, from Arabic لَوْقَاء (lawqāʔ, “stupid (feminine)”), the feminine of أَلْوَق (ʔalwaq, “stupid”).^[5][6][1] The Romance masculine in -o would have been formed from the Arabic feminine, its final -a taken as the Romance feminine ending, as in zarco and gafo.^[2][1][7]

Corominas long doubted this etymology: the Arabic adjective is rare, unknown to the Qur'an and to the dictionaries of colloquial Arabic, and the root l-w-q has no clear sense.^[2] In its favour he cites the Cordoban rabbi Abulualid (about 1150), whose Hebrew–Arabic dictionary is said to use the root for “to be mad”, and a reading of a zajal of Ibn Quzman in which the word, “the madwoman”, refers to the poet's wife; this, he writes, strongly supports the Arabic origin.^[2] Corriente accepts it, pointing out that the Andalusian form is not documented.^[7][6]

Diez and, after him, Rohlfs, Wagner and Meyer-Lübke linked the word to Italian dialect locco (“owl; dolt”), from Late Latin ulucus (“owl”).^[3] García de Diego still prefers this source.^[2][3] Corominas rejects it because the Portuguese form points to a diphthong /au/ and because no owl word of this kind existed in the Iberian Peninsula.^[2] Muret's derivation from the name of the Homeric hero Glaucus, who exchanged his golden armour for bronze, found little acceptance.^[1] Wiktionary mentions Ancient Greek γλαυκός (glaukós, “gleaming, grey”) as an alternative.^[2][1] Corominas also considered the root of the words for a brooding hen and an addled egg, which the word means in Vitoria, and did not rule out a pre-Roman *laucus.^[2]

The word is shared only by Portuguese louco, Galician louco and Asturian llocu; it reached the Catalan of Valencia as a Castilianism, Catalan lloco, and some Occitan dialects.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the word from the beginnings of the language, in Berceo, and the noun locura already in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[2][4] An early text in the CDH is the Razón de amor (c. 1205–1250, in a copy of 1250–1260), which tells love that it makes a fool of the wise: del sabio fazedes loco.^[8] From the start it had both senses, “having lost one's reason” and “foolish, rash”, the second being more frequent in medieval texts.^[9] Berceo speaks of la gent loca “the foolish people”.^[2] Glossaries of about 1400 render it by Latin amens, furiosus and vesanus.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The medieval sense “foolish” lived on beside “insane”: Alfonso X's Lapidario prescribes coral for the epileptic and for el loco, while his General estoria contrasts the fool with the wise man.^[9] Nebrija glosses it as “like a fool”, Latin stultus, fatuus.^[10]

The Diccionario de Autoridades adds a transferred sense “fertile, abundant”, as in año loco and cosecha loca, and records a tontas y a locas “haphazardly”.^[11] Salvá's dictionary applied it to overgrown branches.^[12] In 1899 the Academy added the physical sense of a compass that has stopped pointing north and of pulleys that spin freely.^[13] Today it also describes a machine that works out of control and, colloquially, someone overjoyed or in love.^[5]

In the Americas the word is recorded from 1532, in Mexico.^[14] The feminine loca is used euphemistically in many Latin American countries for a woman with several unstable relationships and in Argentina and Uruguay for a prostitute; in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic and Uruguay young people use loco to address each other.^[5] In Chile it was used for a rabid dog.^[15] American English took loco “mad, crazy” from Spanish in 1844, and locoweed named plants that make cattle stagger.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has the derivative locura.^[2][4]
• c. 1205–1250 – the Razón de amor: del sabio fazedes loco.^[8]
• c. 1215 – the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (in a 14th-century copy) contrasts el loco and el sage.^[8]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for an insane person.^[9]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses it stultus, fatuus.^[10]
• 1532 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias proposes Latin locus “place” (the madman being “empty”), Basque, or Latin lucus “grove”.^[17]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades prefers lucus “by contrary sense” and records año loco and a tontas y a locas.^[11]
• 1844 – American English loco.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from Latin luscus “squint-eyed”.^[18]
• 1899 – the Academy changes the etymology to Arabic.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. mad, insane: having lost one's reason; also as a noun.^[5][1]
2. rash, imprudent, of little judgement; also as a noun.^[5][1]
3. Of a device: working out of control: El GPS se ha vuelto loco.^[5][1]
4. Far beyond the ordinary, in a good sense: Tuvimos una suerte loca con el tiempo.^[5][1]
5. Of tree branches: overgrown, too vigorous.^[5][1]
6. (colloquial) Overjoyed: loco de contento.^[5][19]
7. (colloquial) Very fond of someone or something: Está loco por las motos.^[5]
8. (physics, mechanics) Of a part: turning freely on its axis, as a pulley.^[5][1]

Noun

1. A madman;^[1] (derogatory) a crazy person.^[1][5]
2. (colloquial, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Uruguay) Used among young people to address one another.^[5][1]
3. (feminine, colloquial, derogatory) An effeminate homosexual man.^[5]
4. (feminine, colloquial, euphemistic, Latin America) A woman with several relationships, none of them stable.^[5]
5. (feminine, colloquial, euphemistic, Argentina, Uruguay) A prostitute.^[5]

Word family

• loquear
• loquero
• locuelo
• locura
• alocado
• enloquecer

Related words

• Portuguese louco

Usage notes

Loco is also the Chilean name of the edible sea snail Concholepas, a word of Mapuche origin.^[5][20][21] Set phrases include a lo loco “without thinking” and hacerse el loco “to pretend not to notice”.^[5][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q 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, 683
3. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. oluccus
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. loco
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r 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. loco
6. ^ a b c Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. loco
7. ^ a b Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 365
8. ^ 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. loco
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. loco
10. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 372
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 428
12. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 667
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 608
14. ^ 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. loco
15. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 329
16. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
17. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1091
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 650
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 443
20. ^ Lenz, Rodolfo (1904–1910), Diccionario etimolójico de las voces chilenas derivadas de lenguas indíjenas americanas, Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Cervantes, p. s.v. loco
21. ^ Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 347