natrón

Forms

natrón m (plural natrones)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Arabic نطرون (naṭrūn), from Ancient Greek νίτρον (nítron, “sodium carbonate”), itself from Egyptian nṯr.^[2][1][3] The DLE and Corriente, Pereira and Vicente take the modern word through French natron;^[2][3] Corriente, Pereira and Vicente describe it as a modern technical term that reached the Romance languages through French from the Late Latin translations of the Middle Ages.^[2][3] The French historical dictionary has it the other way: the French word, first recorded in 1665, came from Arabic by way of Spanish.^[4] Wiktionary also derives the French word from Spanish.^[5]

Old Spanish already had the word in the lapidary of Alfonso X, as Old Spanish anatron, with the Arabic article fused to it.^[6] Etymonline notes the same form in Medieval Latin, Medieval Latin anatron, and in Paracelsus.^[7] Corriente, Pereira and Vicente also list Spanish alatrón.^[3]

The Greek word, Attic λίτρον (lítron), is a borrowing;^[8][1] Wiktionary takes it from Semitic, comparing Biblical Hebrew נתר (néṯer, “washing soda”).^[8][1] The learned word nitro goes back to the same Greek word through Latin.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso X's Lapidario (1250–1279) describes la piedra que dizen anatron, “the stone they call natron”, as a kind of borax and a mineral like it.^[6] The form natron appears in Alfonso Chirino's Menor daño de la medicina (before 1429, in a late 15th-century copy), where la sal que dizen natron, mixed with figs, is a remedy for a hard spleen.^[10]

Semantic evolution

After Chirino the word is rare until the 19th century, when it returns in chemistry and mineralogy: an 1853 translation of Plattner's manual on assaying with the blowpipe names Natron beside trona.^[10] In 1819 a list of medicines from Santo Domingo includes salts of natron.^[11] Writers of the 1880s mention it in the Egyptian embalming of mummies.^[10]

The Academy's dictionary of 1884 defined it as a salt of carbonic acid and soda, used in making soap, glass and spirits, and also as the hard grey residue skimmed from glass-making crucibles.^[12] The 22nd edition still had a second sense, the ashes of the saltwort plant, which the current dictionary has dropped.^[13][2] Through the chemists' Latin natrium, the word is the source of the symbol Na for sodium.^[4][7]

Timeline

• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has the form anatron.^[6]
• Before 1429 – Chirino's Menor daño de la medicina has natron (in a late 15th-century copy).^[10]
• 1665 – French natron is first recorded.^[4]
• 1680s – English natron, from French.^[7]
• 1819 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary enters the word, deriving it from Arabic.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (chemistry, mineralogy) natron: natural or artificial sodium carbonate (carbonato), a white, translucent salt that crystallizes and effloresces, used in making soap, glass and dyes.^[2][1][14]
2. (dated) The ashes of the saltwort plant (barrilla).^[13][14]

Related words

• nitro
• Ancient Greek νίτρον (nítron)
• French natron

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. natrón
3. ^ a b c d 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. natrão
4. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. natron
5. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. natron
6. ^ a b c Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. natrón
7. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
8. ^ a b 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. νίτρον
9. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nitro
10. ^ 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. natrón
11. ^ 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. natrón
12. ^ 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. 733
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. natrón
14. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. natrón