nogal

Forms

nogal m (plural nogales)^[1] Old Spanish documents also write nogar, nogares and nagar.^[2] Asturian and Riojan dialects have noal.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin nucālis (“relating to nuts”), from nux (“nut”).^[4][1][5] The DLE glosses the Latin adjective as “of the size of a nut, relating to the nut”.^[4] Corominas notes that the Spanish word presupposes an old derivative of this form.^[5]

The same Latin adjective gave Portuguese nogal, Asturian noal and Old Occitan nogal (“nut kernel”).^[6][3][7] The Latin noun goes back to *knuks, and is related to Old Irish cnú and Old English hnutu; de Vaan concludes that the word is probably a loan from a non-Indo-European language.^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to 1086.^[5] DEMel's earliest records are nokares (1055) and nagare (1106), in charters.^[2] The first records in the CDH with the full sense are a field al nogal in a document of Oña (1254) and Alfonso X's Picatrix (1256), which tells the reader to make a great fire of llenna de nogal “walnut wood”.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already uses the word for both the tree and its wood: a tablet de nogal in an astronomical work of 1277.^[10] Nebrija (c. 1495) calls it a well-known tree and gives Latin nux;^[11][12] Covarrubias (1611) notes that the Latin word names both the tree and its fruit.^[11][12] The Diccionario de Autoridades praised its hard wood for tables and desks, and warned that its shade was harmful and caused headaches.^[13] The Academy's 1817 edition notes that the wood is prized for furniture and that the bark is used for tanning.^[14]

In the Americas walnut trees and furniture of walnut are recorded from 1578 (Venezuela).^[15] The Inca Garcilaso wrote in 1609 that he did not know of walnuts having been taken to Peru.^[16] The name passed to native American species: the Andean walnut, from Colombia to Chile, and a Puerto Rican species.^[17][18] The DLE also records nogal as an adjective and noun for the reddish-brown colour of the wood.^[4][19]

Timeline

• 1055 – DEMel's earliest record, nokares, in a document of San Vicente de Oviedo.^[2]
• 1086 – Corominas's date of first record.^[5]
• 1256 – Alfonso X's Picatrix has llenna de nogal “walnut wood”.^[9][10]
• 1277 – an astronomical work of Alfonso X uses nogal for the wood.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin nux for it.^[11]
• 1578 – first record in the Americas, in Venezuela.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the word.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary notes the use of the wood for furniture.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. The walnut tree, Juglans regia, a tree of up to about fifteen metres whose fruit is the nuez.^[4][1]
2. The wood of the walnut, hard and veined, prized in cabinetmaking (ebanistería): una cómoda de nogal.^[4][1]
3. A reddish-brown colour like that of walnut wood.^[4][19]
4. (Latin America) Any of several native walnut trees, such as Juglans neotropica in the Andes and Juglans jamaicensis in Puerto Rico.^[17]

Adjective

1. Of the reddish-brown colour of walnut wood; usually invariable: dos puertas nogal.^[4][1]

Word family

• nogalina

Related words

• nuez
• noguera
• Latin nux
• Portuguese nogueira

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. nucalis
4. ^ 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. nogal
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nuez
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 499
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. nogal
10. ^ a b c d 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. nogal
11. ^ a b c Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 386
12. ^ 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. 1166
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 675
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 601
15. ^ 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. nogal
16. ^ Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. nogal
17. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. nogal
18. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. nogal
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nogal