mano

Forms

mano f (plural manos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin manus (“hand”), and Old Spanish mano has the same form from the first records.^[2][3][4][1] The word is general in every period and common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese mão, Galician man, Aragonese man, Catalan mà, French main, Italian mano and Romanian mână.^[2][5][6][1] Catalan passed through man, which survives in fixed phrases and in Ribagorza.^[7]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *manus, with Oscan and Umbrian cognates.^[8][1] De Vaan follows Schrijver in reconstructing *mon-u- (“hand”), with a later change of the vowel to /a/ in an open syllable, and compares Old High German munt and Old Norse mund “hand” and Old Irish and Hittite words for “protection” and “to entrust”.^[8] Wiktionary also cites a proposal, favoured by Mallory and Adams, of *méh₂-r̥, from *(s)meh₂- (“to beckon”).^[1]

Covarrubias derived the word from mānō (“to flow”), because the five fingers “flow” out of the hand.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to a charter of 993; the earliest hits in the CDH are Latin charters with manu.^[2][3][10] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) uses it for the hand and in gestures of pledge: „Rachel e Vidas, amos me dat las manos” “Rachel and Vidas, both give me your hands”.^[10] In the Cid a manos tomar means “to take prisoner”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish had many phrases: man a mano “at once” in Berceo, mano a mexilla “hand on cheek, pensively”, and de mano “straight away, to begin with” in Juan Ruiz.^[2][12] Alfonso X's prose uses it for the forefoot of a quadruped, the claw of a scorpion and a side, as in man siniestra “the left hand side”.^[13] Covarrubias calls its senses and phrases infinite, and lists estar mano sobre mano “to sit idle”.^[9] Autoridades adds the elephant's trunk.^[14] Percyvall glosses mano de papel as “a quire of paper”, and the Academy's dictionary of 1817 lists the pestle, the coat of paint and the twentieth part of a ream.^[15][16]

The sense “hand in a card game” has widened in the Americas to “opportunity” in Colombia and to “mishap, adventure” in Argentina, Chile, Venezuela, Central America and the Antilles.^[2] In several American countries a mano of fruit is a group of five, in Cuba a hand of bananas cut from the bunch, while in Chile it was a set of four.^[2][17][18] English borrowed the word for the stone used to grind maize on a metate.^[1]

Timeline

• 993 – first record, in a charter.^[2][3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses manos in pledges and a manos tomar “to capture”.^[10][11]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for the hand and the forefoot of an animal.^[13]
• 1283 – Alfonso X's book of games has man siniestra “left side”.^[13]
• 1495 – first record of the diminutive manecilla.^[3]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses mano de papel “a quire of paper”.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias lists phrases such as estar mano sobre mano.^[9]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the elephant's trunk as mano.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin manus.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) hand: the part of the body at the end of the forearm, from the wrist to the fingertips: Lávate las manos antes de comer.^[4][1]
2. (zoology) In some animals, a limb whose thumb can be set against the other digits.^[4]
3. Either forefoot of a quadruped; in butchered animals, any of the four feet.^[4][1]
4. Side, either of two sides fixed by convention: a mano derecha.^[4]
5. The hand of a clock, a clock hand.^[4][1]
6. A pestle; a stone roller for grinding cacao or maize.^[4][1]
7. A coat of paint, plaster or varnish: La puerta necesita otra mano de pintura.^[4][1]
8. A round or hand in a game.^[1][20]
9. skill, knack, as in buena mano.^[4][1]
10. (in the plural) Workers, labour.^[20]
11. (Latin America) A group of five fruits, especially bananas cut together from the bunch.^[17]

Word family

• manecilla
• manija
• manosear
• manota
• manotazo
• trasmano
• antemano
• manada
• manear
• maniatar
• manirroto
• mandoble
• mampuesto
• mamporro

Related words

• manejar
• manojo
• manual
• quiro-
• manilla
• manivela
• manifestar
• manuscrito
• Latin manus

Usage notes

Mano is feminine: la mano, las manos.^[4][1] The diminutive is manecilla or manecita in Spain, manita in Andalusia, and manito in most of the Americas.^[2] A homonymous mano “buddy, mate”, used as a familiar form of address in Mexico, the Dominican Republic, Central America, the Caribbean, Colombia, Venezuela and the Canary Islands, is a clipping of hermano.^{[21][1][17][22][18]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 817
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mano
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. mano
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. manus
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. manus
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, 319
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. manus
9. ^ 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. 1111
10. ^ 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. mano
11. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 335
12. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 288
13. ^ 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. mano
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 481
15. ^ a b Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 168
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 550
17. ^ 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. mano
18. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 233
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 672
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mano
21. ^ 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. mano2
22. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. mano