nardo

Forms

nardo m (plural nardos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin nardus (“nard”), from Ancient Greek νάρδος (nárdos).^[2][3][1][4] It is a learned word.^[2][5]

Beekes takes the Greek word from Phoenician, comparing Biblical Hebrew נרד (nērd), Aramaic נרדא (nirdā) and Akkadian lardu.^[6] The Semitic words in turn are probably from Sanskrit नलद (nálada, “Indian nard”), the plant being native to India;^[6][3][7] Beekes thinks a link with नड (naḍá, “reed”) should be abandoned.^[6][3][7] Wiktionary leaves the Sanskrit source open, noting that a loan from Semitic into Indic has also been suggested.^[1][8]

The same Latin word is Italian nardo, French nard, Catalan nard and Portuguese nardo.^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in a copy of the early 15th century) lists it among the spices of a fragrant land: girofe, nuez moscada e nardo natural “clove, nutmeg and natural nard”.^[9][10] A New Testament in a manuscript of the mid-13th century tells of the woman with an ointment de nardo espigado precioso “of precious spikenard”, poured over Jesus at Bethany.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In Alfonso X's General Estoria the word renders the nard of the Song of Songs: la mi especia nardo dio su olor muy bueno “my spice of nard gave out its fine scent”.^[9] Covarrubias in 1611 calls it a fragrant herb with three kinds, after Dioscorides, and quotes the same verse in Latin.^[11] The Autoridades of 1734 describes the Syrian or Indian nard and the Celtic nard, and a second sense, the aromatic ointment with which Mary Magdalene anointed Christ's feet.^[12]

From 1817 the Academy defined the word as a bulbous garden plant with white flowers that smell strongest at night, a different plant from the nard of the ancients.^[13][14] In 1917 Alemany separated the two senses: the spikenard and the garden plant of the lily family.^[15] Moliner identifies the garden plant as the tuberose, whose flowering stem is the vara de nardo.^[16] Puerto Rican and other American dictionaries stress that the American nardo is the tuberose and not the nard of the Old World.^[17][18] In northern Spain the word is also a vulgar name for the penis.^[1]

Timeline

• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre names nardo among spices (in an early 15th-century copy).^[9][10]
• Before 1260 – a New Testament in a manuscript of the mid-13th century has unguento de nardo.^[9]
• Before 1280 – Alfonso X's General Estoria uses it in the Song of Songs.^[9]
• 1438 – the date Corominas gives as the first record.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija defines it as a fragrant and foreign tree, Latin nardus.^[19][5]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes three kinds after Dioscorides.^[11]
• 1683 – first record from the Americas, in New Granada.^[20]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary defines it as a bulbous garden plant with white flowers.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology, from Latin nardus and Greek.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. Spikenard (espicanardo), the aromatic plant of the Himalayas (Nardostachys jatamansi), also called nardo índico.^[3][1]
2. The tuberose (Polianthes tuberosa), a garden plant with spikes of white, funnel-shaped flowers that are very fragrant, especially at night, grown in hot countries and used in perfumery.^[3][16]
3. The flower of this plant: Le regaló un ramo de nardos.^[3][22]
4. (historical) An aromatic ointment formerly made from the extract of nard roots.^[3][12]
5. (northern Spain, vulgar) The penis.^[1]

Word family

• espicanardo

Related words

• Latin nardus
• French nard

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nardo
3. ^ a b c d e f g 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. nardo
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. nardus
5. ^ a b 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. nardo
6. ^ a b c Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. νάρδος
7. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 482
8. ^ 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, p. s.v. nard
9. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. nardo
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. nardo
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. 1158
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 647
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 594
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 494
15. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1183
16. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nardo
17. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1999), Vocabulario de Puerto Rico, critical ed. by Humberto López Morales, Madrid: Arco/Libros (1st ed. 1937), p. 260
18. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 325
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 385
20. ^ 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. nardo
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 732
22. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. nardo