mortero

Forms

mortero m (plural morteros)^[1] Berceo also uses a Latinising form mortario, and one manuscript of the Libro de Alexandre has morter, which Corominas thinks may be Catalan.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin mortārium (“bowl or trough in which things are pounded”).^{[2][3][4][1][5]} The same Latin word is Italian mortaio, French mortier, Catalan morter and Portuguese morteiro; it was also borrowed into Basque mortairu and German Mörser.^[6][7][8]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain.^[1][9] De Vaan suggests Proto-Italic *morto- (“ground”), from Proto-Indo-European *mr̥tó-, from the root of morior (“to die”), and compares words meaning “to crush” or “to destroy”, such as Ancient Greek μαραίνω (maraínō).^[9][1] The OLD also compares a Sanskrit verb meaning “to crush”.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DHLE's first record is a Latin-Romance document of the monastery of Otero de Dueñas, on a parchment of the second half of the 11th century, which lists a mortero de allatone “brass mortar” among the property of the monks.^[5] The first literary record is in Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (c. 1236), of a man who broke iron fetters faster than one grinds garlic: non moldrié más aína ajos en el mortero.^[5][11]

Semantic evolution

The Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250) already uses the word for the mixture of lime and sand used in building, in the story of the Tower of Babel, where a mason who asked for mortero was handed a rope.^[2][11] Mortars of gold, brass, copper and lead are found in the old texts; in Spain and Cuba mortero came to mean one of stone or wood, and almirez one of metal, while in the interior of Argentina the distinction is reversed.^[2][5] From the 15th century the word also named a short, wide piece of artillery, after the shape of the vessel.^[12] Autoridades (1734) gives the utensil, the war machine for firing bombs and the mixture of lime and sand.^[13] The Academy's 1817 dictionary adds a pump piston on ships and the round cap that high officers of justice used in their coats of arms instead of a crown.^[14] In Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua a mortero is a very large firecracker.^[15][1]

Timeline

• 1050–1110 – mortero de allatone in a Latin-Romance document of Otero de Dueñas.^[5]
• 1198 – DEMel's first record in a Romance document.^[16]
• 1210 – Corominas's first record, in a charter.^[2][3]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos uses it for a kitchen mortar.^[11][5]
• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre uses it for building mortar.^[2][11]
• 1268 – an inventory lists un mortero con so pisador “a mortar with its pestle”, the first record without a later copy.^[11]
• c. 1400 – the diminutive morteruelo.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin mortarium.^[17]
• 1512 – first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico: un mortero de piedra.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin mortarium.^[19]
• 1734 – Autoridades records the artillery sense.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mortar: a bowl of wood, stone or metal in which spices, seeds or drugs are crushed with a pestle: Machacó los ajos y el perejil en el mortero.^[4][1][20]
2. (military) A mortar: a short gun that fires shells at high angles.^[4][1]
3. The thick, round bedstone of an olive oil mill, on which the olives are crushed.^[4][20]
4. (construction) Mortar: a mixture of sand, a binder such as lime or cement, and water.^[4][1]
5. (heraldry) A round velvet cap worn by certain high officers of justice, placed on their coats of arms instead of a crown.^[4]
6. (Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua) A very large firecracker.^[15][1]

Word family

• morterete
• morteruelo
• morterada
• morterazo

Related words

• almirez
• Latin mortārium
• Catalan morter

Usage notes

The pestle is mano de mortero.^[1][18] In Spain and Cuba a metal mortar is usually called almirez.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. 4, 157
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mortero
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. mortero
5. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. mortero
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5693
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 475
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, p. s.v. mortārium
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. mortārium
11. ^ 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, p. s.v. mortero
12. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. mortero
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 612
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 585
15. ^ 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. mortero
16. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. mortero
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 382
18. ^ 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. mortero
19. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1149
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. mortero