muro

Forms

muro m (plural muros)^[1] Leonese and Cantabrian dialects have murio and morio.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish muro, inherited from Latin mūrus (“wall, city wall”).^[3][4][5][1] From the start the Ibero-Romance word was used above all for a city wall, a thick outer wall that defends a fortified place.^[3]

The same Latin word is Portuguese muro, Galician muro, Catalan mur, Occitan mur, French mur, Italian muro and Romanian mur.^[6][2] Wiktionary compares German Mauer and the obsolete English mure.^[1]

Old Latin wrote the word moerus or moirus, which goes back to Proto-Italic *moiros; de Vaan reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *(H)moi-ro- (“building”).^[7] The same stem is in pōmērium (“strip of land round the town walls”), from a form meaning “what is behind the wall”.^[7] Wiktionary connects it with *mey- (“to fix, to build fortifications”), also found in mūniō (“to fortify, protect”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH is in La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), a version of the Bible: „en su voluntad dextruxieron muro” “in their wilfulness they pulled down a wall”.^[8] The first text without a later copy is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), which frees a man from every tax except the work on „los muros dela uilla” “the walls of the town”.^[8] Corominas gives Berceo as the first record, and the BDELC dates it 1220–1250.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

In medieval texts muro is above all the defensive wall of a town or castle: so in Juan Ruiz, Alfonso de Palencia and Nebrija.^[3] Corominas notes that the word was in general use in the Middle Ages and later but is not very popular today, when the wall of a house is usually pared.^[3] The sense “city wall” came to be shared with muralla, taken in the 15th century from Italian muraglia.^[3][4]

Covarrubias defines muro as the enclosure of a city or town built for its safety and defence.^[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades equates it with pared or tapia and says it is often used for muralla; in the slang of the underworld (germanía) it meant a small round shield, a broquel.^[10][11] The Academy's 1884 edition added a mining sense, the lower face of a seam of ore, and its 1899 edition the proverb por el muro se saca la villa, explained by por el hilo se saca el ovillo.^[12][13]

Moliner records the figurative wall that keeps people apart, and Wiktionary the wall of a profile on a social network.^[14][1] In Chile a carpet muro a muro covers the whole floor of a room.^[15] The first record from the Americas is from New Granada in 1539.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy) has „dextruxieron muro”.^[8]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes speaks of the walls and towers of the town.^[8]
• 1220–1250 – the BDELC's date of first record; the DCECH names Berceo.^[4][3]
• c. 1230 – Berceo's Vida de San Millán (in an 18th-century copy) tells of „los muros trastornados” “the walls thrown down”.^[8]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses muro de ciudad o villa with Latin murus.^[17]
• 1539 – first record from the Americas, in New Granada.^[16]
• 1591 – Percyvall translates it “a wall”.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as the defensive enclosure of a city or town.^[9]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. murus” and the mining sense.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy records the proverb por el muro se saca la villa.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wall, especially a thick outer wall of a building, or a garden or boundary wall: Pintaron un mural en el muro del colegio.^[5][19][1]
2. A city wall, a rampart; muralla, often in the plural: Los romanos rodearon la ciudad con muros de piedra.^[5][19]
3. (figurative) A barrier that keeps people from communicating or understanding each other.^[14][1]
4. (Internet) The wall of a profile on a social network, where messages are posted.^[1]
5. (mining) The lower face of a seam or deposit of ore.^[20][12]
6. (Chile) In muro a muro, of a carpet: fitted, covering the whole floor of a room.^[15]

Word family

• mural
• muralla
• murar
• antemuro
• muladar
• murete
• amurallar
• extramuros
• intramuros
• amurar

Related words

• Latin mūrus
• Portuguese muro
• Catalan mur

Usage notes

Muro de contención is a retaining wall and muro de carga a load-bearing wall.^[14] In Ecuador muro also names a small glass bead;^[21] Malaret derives this sense from Quechua mullu.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. murus
3. ^ 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, 193
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. muro
5. ^ 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. muro
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ 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
8. ^ 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. muro
9. ^ 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. 1155
10. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 634
11. ^ Salillas, Rafael (1896), El delincuente español: el lenguaje, Madrid: Victoriano Suárez
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 728
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 683
14. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. muro
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. muro
16. ^ 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. muro
17. ^ 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. muro
18. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 176
19. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. muro
20. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 467
21. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 579