minarete

Forms

minarete m (plural minaretes)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from French minaret, which came through Turkish minare from Arabic منارة (manāra, “lighthouse; candlestick; minaret”).^[2][1][3][4] French has the word from 1606, in the form minerest.^[5] The Arabic noun is formed from a verb meaning “to shine”.^[5][6]

Corominas dates alminar, from a colloquial form of the same Arabic word, to the beginning of the 19th century, and says the French form was brought in during the same century.^[3] Corriente, Pereira and Vicente regard both Spanish words and Portuguese minar alike as late borrowings through French, the Arabic article of the older-looking form being added only to make a recent loan look old.^[4] Eguílaz derived the word from an Arabic plural of the word for “candlestick”, which also gave almenara.^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the CDH is from 1827, in Ceán Bermúdez's translation of Milizia's treatise on the arts: Turkish architecture has much of the Eastern Arab style en sus torres ó minaretes, levantadas para convocar el pueblo al culto “in its towers or minarets, raised to call the people to worship”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Purists objected to the French form: Baralt quoted the Duke of Frías asking what to make of the strange name minaretes for the towers of mosques, which in Spanish had been alminares since before the French knew there were Moors in the world.^[8] Writers such as Bécquer and Pérez Galdós used it nonetheless.^[9] Domínguez (1846–1847) also applied it, “improperly”, to the pointed towers of the Chinese, and Barcia defined it as a tower or pointed finial as well.^[10][11] In Argentina alminar was not used at all, and Garzón (1910) records minarete also for a similar tower on another kind of building.^[12] The Academy defines it only by its synonym alminar.^[2][13]

Timeline

• 1606 – French minerest, the source of the Spanish word.^[5]
• 1827 – first Spanish record, in Ceán Bermúdez.^[9]
• 1846–1847 – in Domínguez's dictionary.^[10]
• 1855 – Baralt's dictionary of Gallicisms criticises it.^[8]
• 1862–1863 – used by Bécquer in Tres fechas and La promesa.^[9]
• 1917 – Alemany's dictionary defines it as alminar.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A minaret, the tall tower of a mosque from which the muezzin (almuédano) calls the faithful to prayer; alminar.^[2][14][1]

Related words

• alminar
• almenara
• French minaret

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c 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. minarete
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. alminar
4. ^ a b Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter
5. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. minaret
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. minarete
7. ^ Eguílaz y Yanguas, Leopoldo de (1886), Glosario etimológico de las palabras españolas (castellanas, catalanas, gallegas, mallorquinas, portuguesas, valencianas y bascongadas) de origen oriental, Granada: La Lealtad, p. 477
8. ^ a b c Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 508
9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. minarete
10. ^ a b Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1199
11. ^ Barcia, Roque (1880–1883), Primer diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Álvarez Hermanos, p. 763
12. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 311
13. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1142
14. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. minarete