negro

Forms

negro (feminine negra, masculine plural negros, feminine plural negras)^[1] DEMel's Old Spanish records have the forms negro, negra, negros and negras, beside Latinising nigro and niger and negre in early documents.^[2] Asturian has negru, and García de Diego records nero as a Castilian dialect form.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin niger (“black, dark”).^[5][6][1] It is the Latin word for the colour, used of the body and figuratively of what is gloomy or ill-omened, as the opposite of albus and candidus.^[7][8]

The same Latin word is Portuguese negro, Galician negro, Catalan negre, Occitan negre, French noir, Italian nero and Romanian negru;^[9][10][4] Coromines notes that it is found in every Romance language except Sardinian.^[9][10][4] Spanish and Portuguese keep the group /ɡr/, while French, Occitan and the oldest Catalan place names turn it into /ir/ (Old French neir, Old Occitan neir).^[10][7]

De Vaan gives the Latin word no etymology.^[11] Wiktionary mentions a possible link with Proto-Indo-European *negʷ- (“bare, naked”), the supposed root of the word for “night”, and a possible Umbrian cognate, and Etymonline reports Watkins's comparison with *nekʷ-t- (“night”).^[1][12] The DHLF notes that Indo-European had no common word for “black”.^[7]

English negro, recorded from the 1550s for a black African, was taken from the Spanish or Portuguese word.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Breve diccionario dates the word to about 1140, the date it gives for the Cantar de mio Cid.^[5][13] In the prose of Alfonso X it already has its main senses: the colour of a stone in the Lapidario (esta piedra es negra en su color), the dark skin of the Ethiopians in a work of 1259, darkened leaves, and figuratively the “black seed” the devil sowed in Spain.^[14] The earliest primary records in DEMel come from the Mozarabic documents of Toledo, from 1114 on.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 called black one of the two extremes of the colours, the opposite of white, and an ill-omened, sad colour, hence phrases such as negra ventura and negra vida; he also records the proverbs aunque negros, gente somos (no one should be despised for being humble) and sobre negro no hay tintura.^[15] The 1726 Autoridades defined it optically, as the colour of a body that receives light but does not reflect it, and added the sense “not as white as it should be”, as in pan negro.^[16]

The Academy's dictionary of 1843 called a black person “the Ethiopian, or anyone else of that colour”, and recorded the colloquial verse negro “to be in a fix” and a cant sense “cunning, sly”, which Hidalgo's glossary of 1609 already has.^[17][18] The 1869 edition first defined the noun as a person whose skin is black, and the 1884 edition first gave the etymology.^[19][20] In the Americas the word was used for African slaves from the first years of the conquest, as in a document of 1515 from Tierra Firme.^[21]

Today it also describes crime fiction and films (novela negra, cine negro), illegal money and dark tobacco, and as a noun a ghostwriter.^[6][22][23] As a term of endearment between spouses, sweethearts and friends it is widespread in Latin America;^[24][25][26] Salvá recorded it for Mexico in 1846, and the Puerto Rican Tesoro traces it to the black nursemaids who called their masters' children by the word they used for their own.^[24][25][26]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the first record according to the Breve diccionario.^[5]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the word for the colour of stones.^[14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives the Latin equivalents pullus, furvus and aquilus.^[27]
• 1515 – the first record in the Americas, for African slaves in Tierra Firme.^[21]
• 1550s – English takes negro from Spanish or Portuguese.^[12]
• 1611 – Covarrubias calls black the opposite of white and an ill-omened colour.^[15]
• 1726 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as the colour of a body that does not reflect light.^[16]
• 1846 – Salvá records the affectionate use in Mexico.^[24]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin niger for the first time.^[20]

Meanings

Adjective

1. black: of the colour of coal or of total darkness; also as a noun, the colour itself.^[6][1]
2. (physics) Of a body: reflecting no visible radiation.^[6]
3. Of a person: having dark skin; also as a noun, a black person.^[6][1]
4. Of or relating to black people: la literatura negra del Caribe.^[6]
5. Darker than others of its kind, or lacking its proper whiteness: cerveza negra.^[6][23]
6. Dark, darkened or dull; very dirty: Traes las manos negras.^[6][1]
7. Of fiction or film: set among criminals and violence, as in novela negra.^[6]
8. Of a bad feeling: very intense; of a rite: invoking the devil, as in magia negra.^[6]
9. unlucky, unhappy, sad: Fue una semana negra.^[6][1]
10. clandestine, illegal, as in dinero negro.^[22][1]
11. (colloquial) Deeply tanned by the sun.^[6][23]
12. (Spain, colloquial) Very angry: Me pone negro tanto ruido.^[1][13]

Noun

1. A ghostwriter: someone whose work is published as another's.^[23][1]
2. (Latin America) A term of endearment for a sweetheart, spouse or close friend: ¿Qué te pasa, negra?^[26][1][25]

Word family

• negrear
• negrero
• negrillo
• negrura
• negruzco
• ennegrecer
• denegrido
• renegrido
• negrito
• albinegro

Related words

• denigrar
• neguilla
• Latin niger
• Portuguese negro

Usage notes

Proverbs with the word include aunque negros, gente somos and sobre negro no hay tintura, both in Covarrubias.^[15] Set phrases include negro de humo “lampblack” and en blanco y negro “in black and white”.^[6][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. negro
3. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. negru
4. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. negro
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. negro
7. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ a b c 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, 898
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ a b 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. 482
14. ^ a b 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. negro
15. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1161
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 661
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 497
18. ^ Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 188
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 536
20. ^ 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. 736
21. ^ 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. negro
22. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. negro
23. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. negro
24. ^ a b c Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 748
25. ^ a b c Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. negro
26. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. negro
27. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 386