madeja

Forms

madeja f (plural madejas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote madexa, and Autoridades (1734) still insisted on the ⟨x⟩ because of the Latin.^[2][3] Aragonese inventories of 1362, 1365 and 1397 have madaxa;^[4][5] Asturian has maexa.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish madexa, inherited from Latin mataxa (“thread; raw silk”).^[4][6][7][1] In all the Romance languages that kept it, the word took the same sense of “skein” as in Spanish.^[4]

The same Latin word is Portuguese madeixa, Galician madeixa, Catalan madeixa, Occitan madaisa and Italian matassa, and it passed into Basque mataza.^[4][8][5] It did not survive in Romanian, Romansh or modern French, though it existed as Old French maaisse.^[4][8]

The Latin word is found in Lucilius and Vitruvius, and the variant metaxa (“thread, cord”) in late authors.^[4][9] Late Greek had Ancient Greek μέταξα (métaxa, “raw silk”), and Wiktionary derives the Latin word from it; the LSJ calls the Greek word of unknown origin and notes that the Latin is recorded earlier.^[1][10] Corominas sees both as words of some oriental origin that cannot be fixed.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Libro de los fueros de Castiella (before 1284) records a woman's statement that she held three madexas belonging to a murdered and robbed woman, pawned to her: tres madexas de aquella muger.^[2] Corominas's first record is the Libro de buen amor (1330–1343).^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

Juan Ruiz puts a proverb in the mouth of an old woman quando beve su madexa, as she winds her skein.^[2] Covarrubias (1611) explains the cuenda, the threads tied across a skein to keep it from tangling.^[11] He also records the proverb madexa sin cuenda for a person in disarray;^[11] sabe vender sus madexas was said of someone hard to cheat.^[11] Autoridades (1726–1739) adds the figurative senses “a head of hair” and “a weak, limp man”.^[3] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 has madeja sin cuenda for anything very tangled and for a person without order in ideas or affairs, and the proverb madeja entropezada, ¿quién te aspó?, said to those who start something in confusion and leave it for others to sort out.^[12] The derivatives desmadejar “to unravel” and desmadejado “limp, listless” date from 1604.^[6][4]

In the Americas the word is recorded from 1512, in Puerto Rico.^[13] In the Dominican Republic madeja is the tripe of cattle or pigs, and in Puerto Rico a confused affair.^[14][15]

Timeline

• before 1284 – the Libro de los fueros de Castiella has tres madexas.^[2]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor, Corominas's first record.^[4][6]
• 1362 – the Aragonese form madaxa in an inventory.^[4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives metaxa as the Latin.^[4][16]
• 1512 – first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[13]
• 1604 – first record of desmadejar and desmadejado.^[6]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records madexa sin cuenda.^[11]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records the senses “hair” and “limp man”.^[3]
• 1817 – the Academy records madeja sin cuenda and the proverb of the tangled skein.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A skein or hank: thread wound in equal loops on a reel, so that it can later be wound into a ball easily.^[7][1][17]
2. A thick mass of hair.^[7][17]
3. (colloquial, Spain) A limp, idle man; also used as an adjective.^[7][17]
4. (Dominican Republic) The tripe of cattle or pigs.^[14]

Word family

• enmadejar
• desmadejar

Related words

• Latin mataxa
• Portuguese madeixa
• Italian matassa

Usage notes

Madeja sin cuenda is a hopeless tangle, or a person without order in ideas or affairs;^[7][17] enredarse la madeja means that a matter grows complicated.^[7][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. madeja
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 448
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, 753
5. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 4197
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. madeja
7. ^ a b c d e f 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. madeja
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5403
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. μέταξα
11. ^ a b c d Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1100
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 540
13. ^ 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. madeja
14. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. madeja
15. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. madeja
16. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. madeja
17. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. madeja