núcleo

Forms

núcleo m (plural núcleos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin nucleus (“kernel; stone of a fruit”), a learned word.^[2][3][1] The Latin noun is a diminutive of nux (“nut”), with an irregular change from the feminine to the masculine;^[1][4] Plautus and Cato still have the fuller form nuculeus.^[1][4] The word for the nut goes back to *knuk- and has cognates in Celtic and Germanic, as Old English hnutu.^[5]

The learned Italian nucleo stands beside the popular nocciolo “fruit stone”, from the same Latin word.^[6][7] VOX notes that the sense “central part” became a scientific term in modern times.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario of 1490, which glosses the Latin name of the almond with nucleo, the kernel.^[2][9] In 1528 and 1539 Antonio de Guevara uses the kernel of a nut as an image of what is good inside a worthless shell.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades (1734) still defines the word as the kernel of a nut and, by extension, of any fruit, quoting Guevara.^[10] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 adds the stone of a fruit, the figurative “element to which others are added to form a whole”, and in astronomy the body of a comet.^[11] Military uses appear in Chile in 1862 and in Mexico in 1865, for the main body of an army.^[12]

The modern dictionaries add the senses of biology and physics, the nucleus of the cell and of the atom.^[3][13] The derivative nuclear dates from the middle of the 20th century.^[2] Today the word also names the Earth's core, a settlement cluster (núcleo urbano), the head of a syllable or phrase in grammar and, in computing, the kernel of an operating system or a processor core.^[3][1]

Timeline

• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia glosses the Latin name of the almond with nucleo.^[2][9]
• 1498 – a Spanish translation of Guy de Chauliac's surgery uses the word.^[9]
• 1734 – Autoridades defines it as the kernel of a nut.^[10]
• 1862 – first record from the Americas, the main body of the government's forces in Chile.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary adds the figurative and astronomical senses.^[11]
• mid-20th century – the derivative nuclear.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The central part or point of something, material or not; core.^[3][1]
2. The kernel of a fruit with a hard shell, such as a nut.^[3]
3. The stone of a fruit.^[3]
4. A primary element to which others are added to form a whole.^[3]
5. A group of people within an organisation that sets its character: el núcleo fundador de la asociación.^[3]
6. A cluster of houses, a settlement: Viven lejos de cualquier núcleo urbano.^[3]
7. (astronomy) The central, densest part of a heavenly body.^[3]
8. (biology) The nucleus of a cell, the organelle that holds the DNA of the chromosomes.^[3][1]
9. (physics) The nucleus of an atom (átomo), made of protons and neutrons.^[3][1]
10. (geology) The Earth's core.^[3]
11. (grammar) The element that heads a morphological or syntactic unit.^[3]
12. (computing) The kernel of an operating system; a processor core.^[1]

Word family

• nuclear
• nucléolo
• nucleario

Related words

• nuez
• Latin nux

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. núcleo
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. núcleo
4. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5983
8. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial
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
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. nucleo
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 745
12. ^ 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
13. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. núcleo