novillo

Forms

novillo m (plural novillos)^[1] Old Spanish texts have noviello, novielo and the feminine noviella, and Aragonese novieyllo; the form nobello appears in Latin charters of 1086.^[2][3] Asturian has nuviello for “young bull”.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin novellus (“new, young”).^[5][6][1][4] Corominas treats it under nuevo, from the same Latin root.^[6] The Latin adjective is a diminutive formed from novus (“new”) with the suffix -ellus.^[7][8][1] It belonged above all to the language of farming, where it was said of young animals and plants, and Varro already speaks of young bullocks with it.^[9][10] The REW records a second sense, “young ox”, which also survives in Sardinian noeddu.^[11]

The same Latin adjective is Catalan novell, French nouveau and Italian novello, where it kept the general sense “new”.^[11][4] novel, “new; inexperienced”, is the same word borrowed from Catalan, and novela came from Italian.^[6][1]

The base adjective goes back to Proto-Indo-European *néwos (“new”),^[1] a form that meant “new, young” in de Vaan's reconstruction.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to 1220–1250.^[6] Cejador's medieval vocabulary quotes it from Berceo's Sacrificio de la misa.^[3] In Alfonso X's General Estoria (1272–1275) Jupiter turns Io into a noviella, a young cow, so that she looks like a heifer: mudo el ... a yo en nouiella. & que semeiasse uaca.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The sense “young bull or cow” has not changed since Old Spanish.^[5][13] Covarrubias (1611) defined it as a young bullock not yet put to the yoke and compared the pair nuevo / novillo with tierno / ternero.^[14] He also explained the country phrase irse a novillos, said of a lad who left his village to see the world and came back soon after.^[14] The Diccionario de Autoridades kept the definition and added a jocular sense, “cuckold”, illustrated by a burlesque poem of Góngora.^[15]

The phrase hacer novillos, “to play truant”, entered the Academy's dictionary in 1869.^[16] Bénaben links it to boys who skipped school to play at bullfighting with young animals.^[10] In the Americas novillo came to mean a steer, a bull castrated young and raised for meat: Alemany noted this for Colombia, Argentina and Central America in 1917, and the DAMER records it from Mexico to the River Plate.^[17][18] In Chile, Mexico and other countries it is also a calf.^[5][18]

Timeline

• 1086 – the forms nobello and nouiello appear in Latin charters.^[2]
• 1220–1250 – first record as a Spanish word, according to Corominas.^[6]
• 1272–1275 – the General Estoria uses the feminine noviella “heifer”.^[13]
• 1535 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the phrase irse a novillos.^[14]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades adds the jocular sense “cuckold”.^[15]
• 1869 – the Academy's dictionary first lists hacer novillos “to play truant”.^[16]
• 1917 – Alemany records the sense “steer” in the Americas.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A young bullock or heifer, between two and four years old.^[5][1]
2. (bullfighting) A bull of three years that has not yet turned four.^[5]
3. (colloquial, rare) A cuckold.^[5][1]
4. (Argentina, Cuba, Mexico, Uruguay, Venezuela) A steer, a bull castrated young and raised for its meat.^[5][18]
5. (Chile, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic) A calf (ternero).^[5]
6. (in the plural) A bullfight with young bulls (novillada): Este domingo hay novillos en la plaza del pueblo.^[5]

Word family

• novillero
• novillada

Related words

• nuevo
• novel
• novela
• Latin novellus

Usage notes

Hacer novillos means “to play truant”, said above all of schoolchildren: Hicieron novillos para ir a la playa.^[5][20] The feminine novilla is a young cow.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. novillo
3. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 310
4. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. novellus
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. novillo
6. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. nuevo
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 492
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. novellus
10. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. novillo
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 5967
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ 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. novillo
14. ^ 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. 1168
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 4, 685
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 541
17. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1204
18. ^ 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. novillo
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. novillo
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. novillo