olla

Forms

olla f (plural ollas)^[1] DEMel records the Old Spanish forms olla and ola.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish olla, inherited from Latin ōlla (“pot, jar”).^[3][4][1] The Latin word was originally aul(l)a, the form in Plautus and Cato.^[5][1]

The same word is Galician ola, Catalan olla, Occitan ola, Old French oule and Romanian oală.^[6][7][8] According to the REW, the Spanish word was itself borrowed as old Italian oglia, French oille and Portuguese olha.^[7]

The OLD reconstructs *auxla, which also explains the diminutive auxilla, and compares Sanskrit and Gothic words for a pot and an oven.^[5] Wiktionary traces it through Proto-Italic *aukslā to Proto-Indo-European *Hukʷ- (“cooking pot”), perhaps a substrate word, the root that also gave the Germanic word for “oven”.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to 1220–1250.^[3] In Berceo's Del sacrificio de la misa (1228–1246, in an early 14th-century copy) the Ark holds una olla de oro, non de tierra, “a pot of gold, not of clay”, full of manna.^[9] The sense is the round earthenware pot, still the first sense today.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The Fuero de Cáceres (1234–1275) priced pots by size, and Alfonso X's Lapidario mentions cooking pots made from a stone.^[9][10] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1737) recorded the pot, the stew cooked in it, “which is today also called the cocido”, and the stomach, where food is “cooked”.^[11] Terreros added the sense “whirlpool”, a hollow in a river or the sea.^[12] The olla podrida, a richer stew with ham, fowl and sausages, is described by Terreros and the Academy.^[12][4]

In colloquial Spanish of Spain olla means the head, as in írsele a alguien la olla “to lose one's head”, and in football the penalty area.^[4] In Latin America it names, among other things, a place where drugs are sold (Colombia) and a liquor made in a clay pot (Guatemala).^[13]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – first record according to Corominas.^[3]
• 1228–1246 – Berceo's olla de oro, in an early 14th-century copy.^[9]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario mentions calderas & ollas.^[10]
• c. 1295 – first record of ollero “potter”.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin olla for the clay pot.^[14]
• 1513 – first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico: una olla de manteca.^[15]
• 1737 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the senses “stew” and “stomach”.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin olla.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pot: a round, bellied vessel of clay or metal with a wide mouth and one or two handles, used for cooking.^[4][1]
2. A potful: the contents of such a pot.^[4]
3. A stew of meat, bacon, pulses and vegetables, especially chickpeas and potatoes; the cocido.^[4][1]
4. A whirlpool in a hollow of the sea or a river.^[4][1]
5. (colloquial) The head: Está mal de la olla.^[4]
6. (colloquial, football) The penalty area (área), especially as the target of a long high ball.^[4]

Word family

• ollar
• ollero
• ollón
• olla podrida
• olla a presión

Related words

• ollería
• Latin ōlla
• Catalan olla

Usage notes

Fixed phrases include olla a presión “pressure cooker”, olla podrida, olla de grillos “bedlam”, a place of noise and confusion, and the proverb no hay olla sin tocino.^[4][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. olla
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. olla
4. ^ 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. olla
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. olla
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 4686
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6059
8. ^ 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. 6, 53
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. olla
10. ^ 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. olla
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 34
12. ^ a b 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, 705
13. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. olla
14. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. olla
15. ^ 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. olla
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 759
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. olla