oda

Forms

oda f (plural odas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Late Latin oda (“ode”), which is from Ancient Greek ᾠδή (ōidḗ, “song”).^[2][3][1] The DLE calls the Latin form Late Latin and Wiktionary Medieval Latin; the BDELC adds the Latin variant ode.^[2][1][3] Barcia had found both Latin forms in the glosses of Philoxenus and in the Latin Anthology.^[4]

The Greek noun is the Attic contraction of ἀοιδή (aoidḗ, “song”), from the verb ἀείδω (aeídō, “to sing”).^[5][1][6] Beekes notes that the ablaut points to a root *h₂ueid-, but that no cognate outside Greek is known.^[5] Gómez de Silva instead derives it from a reduplicated form of the root *wed- (“to speak”).^[7] The same word is Italian oda, Catalan oda and French ode.^[8][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record of the noun is in the fourth part of Alfonso X's General estoria (1280, in a manuscript of that year), on a book that criticised the vices of great men a la manera que es el libro delas odas de oratio “in the manner of the book of the odes of Horace”.^[9][10] The BDELC's date is 1490.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Until the 18th century the word was used of the ancient lyric poem meant to be sung: the Diccionario de Autoridades calls it a song or poem made for singing and “a Greek word”, and quotes Rengifo's Arte poética on odas de Sáphicos y Adónicos.^[11] Terreros explained it as a term of Greek and Latin poetry for verses sung to the lyre, and added that modern odes were divided into strophes and praised heroes as the old ones had praised the gods; he also noted that some writers said ode.^[12] In 1843 the Academy defined it as a lyric composition of varied forms, usually in equal strophes.^[13] The 1884 edition named its kinds (sacred, heroic, philosophical, anacreontic) and the lofty, rapturous tone the word suggested.^[14] Today it is above all a solemn poem in praise of something or someone, and is also used figuratively, as in una verdadera oda al amor in a Caracas paper of 1990.^[2][15][16]

Timeline

• 1280 – the General estoria names the odas of Horace.^[9]
• 1490 – the date of first record in the BDELC.^[3]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as a poem made to be sung.^[11]
• 1786–1793 – Terreros describes the ancient and the modern ode.^[12]
• 1834 – first record from the Americas, in Havana.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the Greek etymology.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. An ode: a lyric poem of elevated tone, usually in stanzas (estrofas), that praises something or someone: Escribió una oda al mar.^[2][15][1]
2. (history of literature) In Greek lyric, a poem in three parts sung by a chorus (coro).^[17]

Related words

• parodia
• prosodia
• rapsodia
• epodo
• melodía
• comedia
• tragedia
• French ode

Usage notes

In Old Spanish oda was also a form of the verb oír “to hear”: the Fuero de Béjar (1290–1293) has el iudez oda su razon “let the judge hear his case”.^[10] Terreros records a separate oda of travel accounts, for each of the classes into which the pages of the Ottoman sultan were divided.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. oda
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. oda
4. ^ a b Barcia, Roque (1880–1883), Primer diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Álvarez Hermanos, p. 1005
5. ^ a b Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 502
8. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 554
9. ^ 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. oda
10. ^ 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. oda
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. oda
12. ^ a b c 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, 695
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 507
14. ^ 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. 754
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. oda
16. ^ 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. oda
17. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. oda