malla

Forms

malla f (plural mallas)^[1] DEMel records a form maylla in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (1200–1250).^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French maille, from Latin macula (“spot; mesh of a net”).^[3][4][5] Wiktionary gives the chain through Old Spanish malla, Old French maille and Vulgar Latin *macla.^[1] The Castilian form of the word was mancha, used for the rings of mail in the Libro de Alexandre, with the same nasal as in the word for “stain”; it gave way to the French form through the influence of French on medieval military vocabulary.^[3] A Leonese text of the 14th century has desmallar (“to break the rings of mail”) beside a form with ⟨y⟩, which shows that the French form lived beside a Leonese *maya.^[3]

The same French word gave Occitan malha, and through it Italian maglia, Catalan malla and Portuguese malha.^[6] The word is thus a doublet of the inherited mancha and of the learned mácula.^[1]

The Latin word first meant “spot, stain”, then the mesh of a net, whose pattern recalls the spots of some animals.^[7] De Vaan derives it from *smatlo-, perhaps *smh₁-tlo- (“wiping”), related to Ancient Greek σμάω (smáō, “to wipe clean”), but finds the meaning not compelling.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH has las mallas de la loriga “the rings of the hauberk” in Juan Fernández de Heredia's Historia troyana (1376–1396), and a similar phrase in a Tristán dated between c. 1313 and c. 1410.^[9] Corominas's first record is later: Alfonso de Palencia (1490) has la malla de la loriga de Pálade, and Nebrija gives malla o arma de malla as Latin lorica.^[3][4][10]

Semantic evolution

Both senses were there from the start: Palencia also uses mallas for the knots or meshes of nets, and Percyvall (1591) translates malla as “maile” and malla de la red as “the mesh of a net”.^[3][11] Covarrubias in 1611 defined the steel rings of which coats of mail are made and the openings of a net, deriving the word from Latin maculae.^[12] Terreros added senses of velvet weaving and heraldry.^[13]

From the mesh the word passed to any fabric like a net, and the DLE now also gives a network or structure (malla de comunicaciones) and a thin, elastic garment fitting close to the body, worn by dancers and gymnasts.^[5][14] Malla is a swimsuit in Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay and a watch strap in Argentina, Bolivia and Uruguay; in Ecuador and Chile it is the set of courses of a degree.^[5][15] Medicine uses it for the mesh implants used to repair hernias.^[16]

Timeline

• 1376–1396 – Fernández de Heredia writes of las mallas de la loriga.^[9]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia, Corominas's first record.^[3][4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives malla o arma de malla as Latin lorica.^[10][3]
• 1513 – first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico: bolsones de malla, mesh bags.^[17]
• 1527 – tresmallo, the older form of trasmallo “trammel net”, is recorded in Seville.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the senses of mail and of a net's mesh.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin macula “mesh of a net”.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mesh: each of the four-sided openings formed by the knotted cords of a net.^[5][1]
2. A fabric made of such meshes; any fabric like the mesh of a net.^[5]
3. Mail: a fabric of small linked iron or metal rings, once used for armour, now for purses and bags: una cota de malla.^[5]
4. Each of the rings of such a fabric.^[5]
5. A network or structure: una malla de carreteras.^[5]
6. A thin, elastic, close-fitting garment such as tights or a leotard; often in the plural.^[5][1]
7. (heraldry) A square charge like a lozenge, pierced with a space of the same shape.^[5]
8. (Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay) A swimsuit.^[5][15]
9. (Argentina, Bolivia, Uruguay) A watch strap.^[15]

Word family

• enmallarse
• desmallar
• mallero
• enmallar

Related words

• mallar
• mancha
• mácula
• trasmallo
• Latin macula
• French maille

Usage notes

In Chile malla is also the name of a small, poor-yielding potato, a word that Santamaría takes from Mapuche and Román from this malla.^[19][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. malla
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 790
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. malla
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. malla
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5212
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. maille
8. ^ 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 Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. malla
10. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 376
11. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 167
12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1105
13. ^ 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, 502
14. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. malla
15. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. malla
16. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. malla
17. ^ 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. malla
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. 667
19. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 223
20. ^ 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. 400