niebla

Forms

niebla f (plural nieblas)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote nieula.^[2] The Libro de Alexandre has the Leonese forms niubla and neula;^[3] Aragonese has nebla.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish nevla, inherited from Latin nebŭla (“mist, fog”).^[4][5][1] Wiktionary suggests it came through a contracted Vulgar Latin form *nebla.^[1] The short /e/ of the stressed syllable gave the diphthong /je/, and the unstressed /u/ after it was lost, as in regula, which became regla.^[6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese névoa, Galician néboa, Italian nebbia, Old French nieble and Catalan neula.^[3][7][8] In Catalan the sense “fog” is obsolete, and the word now means chiefly a blight of cereals and a thin wafer.^[8] Romanian negură is the same word with the influence of niger (“black”).^[7]

The Latin word goes back to *nefelā and Proto-Indo-European *nebʰ-e-lo- (“small cloud”).^[9] Its cognates are Ancient Greek νεφέλη (nephélē, “cloud”), Old High German nebul and Old Norse nifl (“darkness, haze”).^[9][10] Wiktionary notes that it is not related to nūbēs (“cloud”), despite the similar form and meaning.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (c. 1236, in a late 13th-century manuscript) lists fog among the hardships of bad weather: o niebla percodida, o pedrisca irada “or thick fog, or raging hail”.^[11][6] A charter of Oña of 1247 already names niebla beside hail and drought among the dangers that can destroy half a harvest.^[11] The BDELC dates the word 1220–1250.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The Libro de Alexandre already uses a magic fog that blinds the eyes, and Alfonso X's hunting treatise warns against flying hawks in rain or fog.^[11] From the fog that was thought to harm crops came the sense “blight of cereals”: Salamanca farmers still blamed winter fogs for the disease that turns wheat grains into black powder.^[11][12] Autoridades (1734) also records an eye disease that clouds the sight and, in medicine, the cloudy part of urine that physicians examined in diagnosis.^[13]

The figurative sense “confusion that keeps one from understanding things” was in the Academy's dictionary by 1843, and germanía slang used niebla for “dawn” as early as 1609.^[14][15] Terreros recorded niebla meona, the fog that drips fine drops of water, which the DLE still lists as colloquial.^[16][5] In 1899 the Academy defined fog as a cloud in contact with the ground.^[17]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – first record in the BDELC; the derivative neblina is as old.^[4]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos uses niebla for fog.^[11]
• 1247 – a charter of Oña names niebla among the dangers to the harvest.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives niebla o neblina as the equivalents of Latin nebula.^[18]
• 1541 – first record in the Americas, in Michoacán.^[19]
• 1609 – Hidalgo's germanía glossary gives niebla “dawn”.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes fog as a vapour from wet ground that either vanishes in the sun or rises to become a cloud.^[20]
• 1734 – Autoridades records the senses “eye disease” and “cloud in urine”.^[13]
• 1899 – the Academy defines it as a cloud in contact with the ground.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. fog, mist: a very low cloud that makes it hard to see, more or less according to how dense it is; also used figuratively: Una niebla espesa cubría el puerto.^[5][1]
2. A cloud or spot on the cornea of the eye.^[5]
3. A dark fungus of cereals; smut or blight.^[5][21]
4. (obsolete) Clots formed in urine after it has cooled and settled, from which physicians diagnosed some diseases.^[5]
5. (figurative) Confusion or lack of clarity in a matter: Aún hay mucha niebla sobre lo que pasó aquella noche.^[22][21]

Word family

• neblina
• antiniebla

Related words

• aneblar
• nebuloso
• Latin nebula
• Portuguese névoa

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. niebla
3. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. niebla
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. niebla
6. ^ a b Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 518
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ 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, 920
9. ^ 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
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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
12. ^ Lamano y Beneite, José de (1915), El dialecto vulgar salmantino, Salamanca: Tipografía Popular, p. 552
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 666
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 498
15. ^ a b 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
16. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 2, 664
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 693
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 386
19. ^ 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. niebla
20. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1162
21. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. niebla
22. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. niebla