Etymologically
Log in

mayoral

History Permalink

Etymology and origin of the Spanish word mayoral

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1220–1250 Berceo More words from the 13th century
Ultimate origin
Latin magnus
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin māior
Italian maggiore
Spanish mayor
Spanish mayoral
English major
From the same root
Latin māiōritās ← māior

Pronunciation

  • /maʝoˈɾal/, [ma.ʝoˈɾal], /maʃoˈɾal/[1]

Forms

mayoral m (plural mayorales)[1] Old Spanish also had the Leonese form maoral, found in the Libro de Alexandre.[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish mayor + -al, and has the same form, mayoral, in the oldest texts.[4][1][2][5] mayor continues Latin maior (“greater”), the comparative of magnus (“great”).[2][6] The Leonese variant maoral matches maor, the Leonese form of the adjective.[2]

Corominas warns that Galician marulán (“the richest farmer of a parish”) should not be confused with it.[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to Berceo (1220–1250), and the Libro de Alexandre has the Leonese maoral.[2][5] The HSMS archive has it already in the Fazienda de Ultramar, in a manuscript dated about 1211–1235.[7] In Alfonso X's prose it is both an adjective, “chief, principal”, and a noun for the head of a group: the General estoria (1272–1275) has Pharaoh call al mayoral delos egipcianos que andaua sobre los ebreos en las lauores “the overseer of the Egyptians who was set over the Hebrews in their labours”.[8]

Semantic evolution

The medieval sense was general: the superior of a monastery or community, or the person of highest rank among others.[8] Autoridades still gave this sense first, quoting the Partidas, and then the chief of the shepherds of a flock.[9] Covarrubias in 1611 knew only the head shepherd who governs the others.[10] The 1843 Academy dictionary marked the general sense as obsolete; by then the word also named the driver of a coach or carriage, the foreman of a gang of reapers and the head of a team of mules.[11][12]

In the Americas the word was used from 1493 for an indigenous chief or headman.[13] In 19th-century Cuba it was the white overseer in charge of a plantation, below the mayordomo in matters of accounts.[14] In Buenos Aires it was the conductor who collected fares on a tram, and in Ecuador and Peru it now names the organiser of certain festivals.[15][16] In the slang of the 17th-century underworld it meant a constable or magistrate.[17][9] Today it is used above all for the head herdsman of a ranch of fighting bulls.[4][18]

Timeline

  • 1220–1250 – Berceo uses mayoral; the Libro de Alexandre has maoral.[2][5]
  • 1272–1275 – the General estoria uses it for the overseer of the Egyptians.[8]
  • 1493 – first recorded in the Americas, in Santo Domingo, for a native chief.[13]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin magister ouium for maioral de ganados.[19]
  • 1609 – Juan Hidalgo's glossary of thieves' slang gives it as “constable, magistrate”.[17]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as the head shepherd.[10]
  • 1843 – the Academy marks the sense “head of a community” as obsolete.[11]
  • 1875 – Pichardo describes the mayoral of Cuban plantations.[14]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A foreman or head capataz who directs the other farmhands, or the men of a team of mules.[4][1]
  2. (obsolete) The superior of a community.[4]
  3. The head shepherd or herdsman, especially of a herd of fighting bulls: El mayoral de la ganadería recibió al torero en la finca.[4][18][1]
  4. (historical) The coachman who drove the team of a stagecoach or carriage.[4][20]
  5. The foreman of a gang of diggers or reapers.[4]
  6. A collector or administrator of tithes (diezmos), rents or alms; formerly also the administrator of hospitals and charitable houses.[4]
  7. (Ecuador, Peru) The person who organises certain religious and popular festivals.[16]

Word family

  • mayoralía

Usage notes

The DLE gives the feminine mayorala for a woman in charge of such work and, colloquially, for the wife of a mayoral.[4]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 890
  3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. mayoral
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. mayoral
  5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mayor
  6. ^ 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. mayor
  7. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. mayoral
  8. ^ 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. mayoral
  9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 518
  10. ^ 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. 1103
  11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 466
  12. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 562
  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. mayoral
  14. ^ a b Pichardo, Esteban (1875), Diccionario provincial casi-razonado de vozes y frases cubanas, 4th ed., La Habana: Imprenta El Trabajo, p. 251
  15. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 304
  16. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. mayoral
  17. ^ a b Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 185
  18. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. mayoral
  19. ^ 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. mayoral
  20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mayoral
Cite this entry

“Mayoral.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/mayoral. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·