manco

Forms

manco (feminine manca, masculine plural mancos, feminine plural mancas)^[1] Old Spanish texts have manco, manchu and Mancho.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mancus (“maimed, crippled; incomplete”), which could be said of any injured part of the body.^[3][4][5][1] The word is common to all the western Romance languages: Portuguese manco, Asturian mancu, Catalan manc (today usually manco), Old French manc, Old Occitan manc and Italian manco “lacking; less”; Italian monco has been crossed with truncus.^[3][6][7][8] Basque mainku “limping” is a loan from Romance.^[6]

The Latin word is usually linked with manus (“hand”): de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *manko-, which would imply a shift from “handy” to “having a defective hand”, and the OLD analyses it as the noun for “hand” with the suffix -cus.^[9][10] Wiktionary gives Proto-Indo-European *mh₂n-ko- (“maimed in the hand”), and mentions a rival derivation from a root meaning “to lack”, compared with Lithuanian meñkas (“poor, small”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the word first in Berceo, and DEMel's earliest record is his Vida de San Millán, of about 1235.^[3][4][2] Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas (1254) lists ciegos o mancos o contrechos “the blind, the maimed or the crippled” among the wretched of this world.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija glossed manco de manos with Latin mancus.^[3] In the 1515 record from Tierra Firme a governor is left medio manco de la mano, and in Mexico in 1525 the word is used of a horse lame in its feet.^[12] The figurative sense “defective, incomplete” is in Autoridades (1734), with the examples obra manca and verso manco, and with the phrase no ser coxo ni manco for a clever, skilful person.^[13] The Academy's 1884 edition added two further senses of no ser uno manco: to be unscrupulous in taking what belongs to others, and to be quick with one's fists.^[14]

In Chile manco came to mean a bad horse, and then any horse;^[15][3] Lenz explains it as a narrowing of the Spanish sense to a lame horse, and the derivative mancarrón “nag” is recorded from 1555.^[15][3] Alemany's dictionary (1917) has both the Chilean horse and the nautical sense of a ship without oars.^[16] Recent internet and gaming slang uses manco for a clumsy, unskilled player.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1235 – first record, in Berceo's Vida de San Millán.^[2][3]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas uses the plural noun mancos.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses manco de manos as mancus.^[3]
• 1515 – first record in the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[12]
• 1555 – the derivative mancarrón “nag” is first recorded.^[3][4]
• 1734 – Autoridades has the figurative sense and the phrase no ser coxo ni manco.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin mancus.^[14]
• 1917 – Alemany's dictionary records the Chilean sense “bad horse”.^[16]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Having lost an arm or a hand, or the use of one: Se quedó manco del brazo derecho tras el accidente.^[5][17][1]
2. Of a thing: defective, lacking a necessary part; incomplete.^[5][17][1]
3. (nautical, obsolete) Of a ship: without oars.^[5][1]
4. (internet slang, video games) Clumsy, unskilled at a game.^[1]

Noun

1. A one-handed or one-armed person.^[5][1]
2. (Chile, colloquial) A horse (caballo), especially a poor one.^[5][18]

Word family

• manquear
• manquera
• manquedad
• mancar
• mancarrón

Related words

• mano
• Latin mancus
• Portuguese manco

Usage notes

No ser manco means to be capable and skilful, and colloquially also to be ready to take what belongs to others or to answer an attack.^[5][17] The Chilean sense “horse” is no loan from Mapuche: the Mapuche word mancu for a poor horse was itself taken from Spanish, as Lenz and Román argue against earlier writers.^[15][19][3] In Mexico manco is said of a four-legged animal that limps from a foreleg.^[20] Wiktionary also lists manco as a name of the tayra.^[1] Judeo-Spanish a lo manco “at least” is probably taken from Italian.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. manco
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 797
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. manco
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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. manco
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5285
7. ^ 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, 412
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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. manco
12. ^ 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. manco
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 473
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. 668
15. ^ a b c Lenz, Rodolfo (1904–1910), Diccionario etimolójico de las voces chilenas derivadas de lenguas indíjenas americanas, Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Cervantes, p. s.v. manco
16. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1075
17. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. manco
18. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. manco
19. ^ 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. 406
20. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 227