miga

Forms

miga f (plural migas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish miga, inherited from Latin mīca (“crumb, grain”), a word used especially of a crumb of bread and of a grain of salt.^[2][3][1][4] The same Latin word is Portuguese miga, Galician miga, French mie and Italian mica, an Italian particle that strengthens a negation.^[5][6][1] Coromines derives Catalan mica from an expressive Vulgar Latin variant *mīcca, whereas the regular Catalan outcome would have been the same as the Spanish one.^[7][8] The learned doublet mica, the name of a mineral made of shiny flakes, was taken from the same Latin word and is recorded from 1884.^[2]

De Vaan, following Nyman, notes that the Latin word first meant a grain of salt and then any glittering particle, and derives it from the root of micō (“to quiver, flash”), from Proto-Indo-European *meyk- (“to blink”).^[9][1] The older explanation, which he finds less attractive, connects it with Ancient Greek σμικρός (smīkrós, “small”).^[9][10][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first dated record is in the Moamín, the book on hunting animals translated in 1250 and known from a copy of the second half of the 13th century, which advises on feeding hawks: E si les dieren lech a beuer, o en migas, serles á bueno “and if they are given milk to drink, or with crumbs, it will be good for them”.^[12][13] The sense is a small piece of bread.^[13] The BDELC gives 1495, the date of Nebrija's vocabulary.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Medieval texts speak of the crumbs that fall from the table, as in the Libro de los gatos (c. 1400) and the Alba Bible.^[12] Enrique de Villena's Arte cisoria (1423) used the word for the soft inside of a green fig.^[12] Nebrija glossed migas de pan cozido with Latin micae.^[14] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as the soft part inside the crust and described migas as a country dish of crumbled bread.^[15]

The Autoridades recorded the inside of the loaf, any small piece of something, and the substance of a thing, in discurso de miga and hombre de miga; it described migas as a dish of crumbled, fried bread that country people made with oil or fat, garlic and pepper.^[16] The Academy added an obsolete sense, pap for babies, in 1817, and the phrase hacer buenas o malas migas, to get on well or badly with someone, in 1843.^[17][18] The phrase is already in a text of New Granada of 1588 and in the Quijote.^[19][20] In Chile miga is the crustless bread used for sandwiches.^[21]

Timeline

• 1250 – the Moamín recommends milk with crumbs for hawks.^[12][13]
• c. 1400 – the Libro de los gatos speaks of the crumbs thrown from the table.^[12]
• 1423 – Enrique de Villena's Arte cisoria uses the word for the soft inside of a fig.^[12][14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates migas de pan cozido as micae.^[14][2]
• 1571 – the first record in the Americas, migas de pan in Mexico City.^[19]
• 1588 – the phrase comer buenas migas with someone appears in New Granada.^[19]
• 1599 – the derivative migajón is first recorded.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes migas as a country dish.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – the Autoridades records discurso de miga and hombre de miga.^[16]
• 1843 – the Academy records hacer buenas o malas migas.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology, Latin mica; the learned mica “the mineral” is recorded in the same year.^[22][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small piece of bread or of anything; a crumb.^[3][1]
2. The soft inside of a loaf, under the crust.^[3][1]
3. (colloquial) The substance or inner virtue of a physical thing.^[3]
4. (colloquial) Substance, weight or importance: Su propuesta tiene más miga de lo que parece.^[3][1]
5. (obsolete) Pap for babies.^[3]
6. (in the plural) A dish of chopped bread, moistened with salted water and fried in oil with garlic and paprika.^[3][23]
7. (Chile) Crustless bread for sandwiches.^[21]

Word family

• migaja
• desmigajar
• migajón
• migar

Related words

• mica
• Latin mīca
• Portuguese miga
• French mie

Usage notes

Hacer buenas migas with someone means to get on well with them, and hacer malas migas to get on badly.^[3] A separate, regional word miga is a shortening of amiga in the sense “schoolmistress”, and means a girls' school in Andalusia; in Mexican villages it was the little primary school, often kept by an old spinster.^{[3][24][23][25]} A Canarian memoir of 1895 says that the common people called such schoolmistresses Migas.^[26]

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 Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. miga
3. ^ 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. miga
4. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. miga
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. mica
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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, 658
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. mica
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ 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. miga
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. miga
14. ^ a b c 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. miga
15. ^ 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. 1136
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 566
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 573
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 476
19. ^ a b c 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. miga
20. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. s.v. miga
21. ^ 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. miga
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 702
23. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. miga
24. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. miga
25. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 304
26. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. miga