migaja

Forms

migaja f (plural migajas)^[1] Old Spanish texts also write migaya and migaia.^[2][3] Asturian and Cantabrian have migaya, Aragonese miojo and mioja, and colloquial Castilian miaja and mieja.^[4]

Etymology

Wiktionary and García de Diego give it as inherited from Vulgar Latin *mīcācula (“little crumb”), a diminutive of Latin mīca (“crumb, grain”).^[1][4] The DLE and the BDELC treat it as a diminutive of miga, from the same Latin word, and the REW lists it among the derivatives of the Latin noun.^[5][6][7]

Related forms with other suffixes are Portuguese migalha, Galician migalla and Asturian migaya.^[4] Cunha derives the Portuguese word from a Hispanic Latin *micalĕa.^[8]

The Latin noun first meant a grain of salt, and then any small glittering particle.^[9] De Vaan therefore follows Nyman in deriving it from the root of micō (“to quiver, flash”), from Proto-Indo-European *meik- (“to blink”); the older explanation links it with Ancient Greek σμικρός (smikrós, “small”).^[9][1] The same Latin word was later taken as the learned mica, the mineral, first recorded in 1884.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in the CDH is in the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in a copy of the early 15th century), where the word already reinforces a negative: a warrior's armour nol prestó nin migaja “did not help him a crumb”.^[3][2] Charters of 1251 use ne migaya in the same way, “not a bit”, of a price fully paid.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish ni migaja meant “nothing at all”, and Leonese texts wrote it as one word, nemigaja.^[10][4] Alfonso X's General estoria (1272–1275) uses the plural for the scraps of food a bird picks from a crocodile's mouth.^[10] Covarrubias defined the word simply as a small miga.^[11]

The Diccionario de Autoridades gave the senses “smallest crumb of bread”, “a small portion of anything”, “a small part of something immaterial” and “nothing at all”, the last with Cervantes's no sé leer migaja “I can't read a bit”.^[12] From 1843 the Academy added the plural sense “leftovers that others make use of”, the phrase reparar en migajas “to quibble over trifles”, and the proverb las migajas del fardel a veces saben bien “the crumbs in the bag sometimes taste good”.^[13][5]

Timeline

• 1240–1250 – first record, in the Libro de Alexandre.^[3][2]
• 1251 – charters write ne migaya “not a bit”.^[3]
• 1254 – the Fuero juzgo and Alfonsine texts use ni migaja “nothing”.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin mica as its equivalent.^[14][15]
• 1541 – first record from the Americas, in Michoacán.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as a little crumb.^[11]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the figurative senses.^[12]
• 1843 – the Academy records the proverb of the crumbs in the bag.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A crumb: the smallest bits of bread, which fall off when it is broken: Barrió las migajas de la mesa.^[5][1]
2. A small piece of anything.^[5]
3. (figurative) A little of something immaterial: No le queda una migaja de paciencia.^[5][17]
4. Nothing, or next to nothing.^[5]
5. (in the plural) leftovers: what someone leaves and others make use of.^[5][18]

Word family

• desmigajar
• migajón

Related words

• miga
• mica
• Latin mīca
• Portuguese migalha

Usage notes

Reparar en migajas means to fuss over trifles while being stingy in things that matter.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. migaja
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
4. ^ a b c d García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4330
5. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. migaja
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. miga
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5559
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2224
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. ^ 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. migaja
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 566
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 476
14. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 380
15. ^ 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. migaja
16. ^ 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. miaja
17. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. migaja
18. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. migaja