meaja

Forms

meaja f (plural meajas)^[1] The DCECH's earliest record, a charter of 1095, has the form medalla.^[2] Old Spanish documents also write meaia, meaya, mealla and meyaya.^[3] Mozarabic documents of the 12th or 13th century have the archaic medálya, and Old Aragonese texts mialla.^[2]

Etymology

It is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin medalia (“half a denarius”), by dissimilation from medialia, the plural of the phrase aes mediāle (“copper coin worth half a denarius”).^[2][4][5] The adjective mediālis (“in the middle”) is formed from medius (“middle”) with the suffix -ālis.^[1] Wiktionary notes that the form is attested in a ninth-century gloss with the sense “half a denarius”, the sense it has in most Romance languages.^[1] The DCECH also cites an old Latin gloss that equates the form with half a denarius, and takes this as proof that it already belonged to Vulgar Latin;^[2][6] Meyer-Lübke had already proposed the dissimilation.^[2][6]

Corominas rejects the older derivation, proposed by Diez and Gamillscheg, from a derivative *metallea of metallum (“metal”): all coins were of metal, so the material could not single one out, and the Occitan and Ibero-Romance forms point to an etymon with ⟨d⟩, not ⟨t⟩.^[2] He admits that Latin used the adjective only for what lies in the middle, not for what is worth half, but considers the step an easy one.^[2]

The same word is Portuguese mealha, Catalan malla (in older texts mealla), Old Occitan mezalha, French maille and Italian medaglia.^[2][6] In Italian it later came to mean “medal” (early 16th century), and in that sense Spanish borrowed it as medalla, first recorded in 1524, a doublet of this word.^[2][5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH's first record is a charter of 1095 in the form medalla; the form meaja first appears in Berceo's Vida de San Millán (c. 1230, known from an 18th-century copy), where the faithful are told not to grudge giving their three meajas.^[2][7] The Fuero de Madrid has it in a text still half in Latin, pectet II dineros & meaia “let him pay two dineros and a meaja” (dated 1158–1202 by DEMel, in a copy of the first half of the 13th century).^[7][3] The first record in a text without a later copy is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250): tome una meaia “let him take one meaja”.^[7] From the start the word names a small coin, worth half a dinero.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's General estoria (1272–1275) uses meaia to render Latin obolus.^[8] As the smallest coin it stood for a trifle: Juan Ruiz says that a rich man may be brought so low that non tiene una meaja de toda su riqueza “he has not a meaja left of all his wealth”, and a 14th-century Aragonese proverb runs qui planye la mialla, spiende el dinero “who grudges the meaja spends the dinero”.^[2] Its value varied with time and place.^[2] Nebrija (c. 1495) gives Latin mina for the coin.^[9][10]

The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as a very small old coin of Castile worth a sixth of a maravedí, and reported Covarrubias's view that it was named as if migaja “crumb”, because it was so small.^[11] The Academy's 1817 edition adds a fee that judges took from the parties in executions, and meaja de huevo as a synonym of galladura, the germ spot of an egg.^[12] From 1869 the Academy put the sense “crumb” first, and in 1899 it valued the coin at a sixth of a dinero, or half a Burgos maravedí, as the DLE still does.^[13][14][4]

Timeline

• 1095 – a charter has the form medalla.^[2]
• 1158–1202 – the Fuero de Madrid has meaia (in a 13th-century copy).^[3][7]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes has meaia.^[7]
• c. 1230 – Berceo uses meajas in the Vida de San Millán.^[2][7]
• 1272–1275 – the General estoria renders Latin obolus by meaia.^[8]
• 1362 – an Aragonese inventory lists una mialla d'argent “a silver meaja”.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records meaja the coin and meaja de uevo.^[10][9]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary records the judges' fee and meaja de huevo.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy values the coin at a sixth of a dinero, or half a Burgos maravedí.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (historical) A billon (vellón) coin of Castile, worth a sixth of a dinero or half a Burgos maravedí.^[4][1]
2. (historical) A fee that judges exacted from the parties in executions.^[4][1]
3. meaja de huevo: the germ spot of an egg (galladura).^[4][15][1]

Related words

• medalla
• miaja
• medio
• Latin mediālis
• Catalan malla
• French maille

Usage notes

The DLE has a second meaja, a rarely used word for “crumb”, from miaja, itself a shortened form of migaja.^[4][16][15] The DCECH considers the popular confusion of migaja with meaja modern.^[2] The DCECH also treats meaja “germ spot of an egg”, first recorded in Nebrija, as a separate word, from Vulgar Latin medialia “what lies in the middle”, without the dissimilation, because the spot lies in the middle of the egg; the DLE lists meaja de huevo under the coin.^[17][18][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 7
3. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. meaja
4. ^ 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. meaja
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. medalla
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5451
7. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. meaja
8. ^ 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. meaja
9. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 378
10. ^ a b 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. meaja
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. meaja
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 563
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 498
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 645
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. meaja
16. ^ 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. miaja
17. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 8
18. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. meaja