navaja

Forms

navaja f (plural navajas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote navaia, nauaja and nouaia.^[2] Wiktionary records the spelling nabaja and a pronunciation /naˈbaʃa/.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *navācla, from Latin novācula (“razor”).^[1][3][2] The first vowel was changed in popular Latin by assimilation to the vowel of the next syllable.^[4][5][6]

The Latin word survived only in the Iberian Peninsula: Portuguese navalha, Galician navalla, Asturian navaya, Aragonese navalla, Catalan navalla (in the west of the Catalan area) and Mozarabic nabali.^[7][4][8][9] In Upper Aragon the older vowel survives in novalla.^[4] Basque nabala and labaina are borrowings.^[4] Coromines takes the Catalan word to be an extension of the Aragonese one.^[7]

The Latin word is an instrument noun in -cula made on an unattested verb meaning “to scrape smooth”.^[10][11] De Vaan traces it to *(ks)nowātlo- and *ks-n(e)-u- (“to scrape, sharpen”), and compares क्षुर (kṣurá, “razor”).^[11][1] Covarrubias and the Diccionario de Autoridades connected it with novare (“to renew”), as if the razor renewed the face.^[12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy): Concibras e paras fijo; non suba navaia sobre su cabeça “you will conceive and bear a son; let no razor come upon his head”.^[14][2] The Libro de Alexandre (c. 1240–1250) has com lieva los pelos la navaja “as the razor takes off the hair”, and the Moamín (1250) has swellings cut with a bleeder's lancet or a razor.^[14]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages the navaja was above all the barber's razor, and the barber used it for bleeding and surgery too.^[2] Nebrija in 1492 also uses the word for the tusk of a wild boar, and the Diccionario de Autoridades (1734) adds an insect's sting and the slanderer's tongue.^[2][13] Martínez de Espinar's Arte de ballestería (1644) uses it for each of the two irons of a crossbow's gaffle.^[2]

In the 19th century the folding knife became the main sense: the Academy in 1843 described it as a blade hinged in a split handle, and in 1884 added that ruffians used it as a weapon.^[15][16] The razor clam is first recorded in 1789 in Málaga.^[2] In the Americas the word names a penknife, a razor or shaver, the steel spur of a fighting cock (from about 1618), and the glass blade on a kite's tail.^[2][17][18]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy): navaia.^[2][14]
• 1220–1250 – Corominas's first date.^[4]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España: Silanus is driven to cut his own throat con una nauaia.^[19]
• 1375–1410 – the Latin–Spanish glossaries give it as the equivalent of Latin novacula.^[2]
• 1492 – Nebrija uses it for the boar's tusk.^[2][20]
• 1513 – the first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico: a case of six razors.^[21]
• c. 1618 – the spur of a fighting cock.^[2]
• 1734 – the Diccionario de Autoridades.^[2][13]
• 1789 – the razor clam, in Málaga.^[2]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, Latin novacula.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pocketknife, jackknife: a knife whose blade folds into the handle: Sacó la navaja para cortar el queso.^[3][1]
2. A razor, in full navaja barbera or navaja de afeitar;^[3][22][17] (Mexico, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico) a razor blade or shaver.^[3][22][17]
3. A razor clam, a marine bivalve with a long, narrow shell like the handle of a folding knife.^[3][1]
4. The tusk of a wild boar and of some other animals.^[3]
5. The cutting sting of some insects.^[3]
6. Each of the two side irons of the gaffle used to span a crossbow.^[3]
7. (colloquial) The tongue of slanderers and gossips.^[3]
8. (Peru, Honduras, Nicaragua) The spur of a fighting cock, or the blade fitted to it.^[17]

Word family

• navajada
• navajazo
• navajero
• navajuela

Related words

• Latin novācula
• Portuguese navalha
• Catalan navalla

Usage notes

Navaja cabritera is a knife for skinning carcasses.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. navaja
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. navaja
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. navaja
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. navaja
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. navaja
7. ^ a b Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 5, 888
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. novacula
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. novācula
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. novācula
11. ^ 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
12. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1159
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 653
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. navaja
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 495
16. ^ 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. 734
17. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. navaja
18. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 584
19. ^ 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. navaja
20. ^ 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. navaja
21. ^ 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. navaja
22. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. navaja