oreja

Forms

oreja f (plural orejas, diminutive orejita, augmentative orejón)^[1] Old Spanish wrote oreia.^[2][3] Old Aragonese had orella and Leonese oreya, orella and ureya;^[4][5] Asturian dialects have oreya, urea and orecha.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish oreja, inherited from Latin auricula (“ear”).^[4][6][7] The Latin word is the diminutive of auris (“ear”), and the poets of the Silver Age already used the diminutive in place of the simple word.^[4][6] Wiktionary starts from the popular variant with ⟨ō⟩ for ⟨au⟩, ⟨ōricula⟩.^[1] Corominas points to the same variant: the Mozarabic and western Leonese forms with ⟨u⟩, together with the Portuguese one, suggest that the vulgar form oricla, found on a curse tablet of the 1st century, prevailed in Spain, while the Occitan form keeps the classical ⟨au-⟩.^[4] The learned doublet is aurícula.^[4][1]

The word is common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese orelha, Galician orella, Asturian oreya, Catalan orella, Occitan aurelha, French oreille, Italian orecchio and Romanian ureche.^[4][5][8] The simple word goes back to Proto-Indo-European *h₂eus- (“ear”), whose cognates include οὖς (oûs), Lithuanian ausìs and 𐌰𐌿𐍃𐍉 (auso).^[9] From the Greek word come the learned otitis and parótida.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH's first record is a charter of 1120.^[4][6] The Fuero de Madrid (in a copy of the first half of the 13th century) orders “corten suas oreias” “let them cut off his ears” as a penalty.^[3][2] In the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (c. 1215) the saint has round ears, “blanquas como leche d'ovejas” “white as ewe's milk”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word has been in general use at all times.^[4] The prose of Alfonso X used it both for the organ of hearing and for the outer ear.^[10] The sense “handle of a vessel” is already in Nebrija; it is usual today in Costa Rica, Colombia, Argentina and other parts of the Americas, and has parallels in Greek, Arabic and English.^[4] A Puerto Rico record of 1512 lists escudillas de oreja, bowls with handles.^[11]

Covarrubias (1611) recorded the phrases dar orejas “to give credit”, cerrar las orejas “to refuse to listen” and hacer orejas de mercader “to pretend not to hear”.^[12] Autoridades gave the metonymic sense “hearing” and the flap of a shoe, quoting a price list of 1680.^[13] In 1817 the Academy added the figurative sense “flatterer who carries tales”.^[14] In Mexico and Central America and in Paraguay an oreja is a police informer, and in several countries a puff pastry shaped like two ears.^[15]

Timeline

• 1120 – first record, in a charter.^[4][6]
• before 1235 – the Fuero de Madrid prescribes cutting off the ears.^[3]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses oreia for the ear and its ailments.^[10]
• c. 1250 – first record of the compound pestorejo “nape”.^[6]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin auris; he also records orejudo.^[16][6]
• 1512 – the first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[11]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records hacer orejas de mercader.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. auricula”.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. The outer ear, the cartilage that forms the outside of the organ of hearing: Llevaba un pendiente en cada oreja.^[7][1]
2. (colloquial) The sense of hearing.^[7]
3. The flap of a shoe on each side that fastens it over the instep.^[7][13]
4. (usually plural) Each of the two symmetrical parts at the point or mouth of some weapons and tools; each of the mouldboards of a simple plough.^[7]
5. A handle of a vessel or tray; each of the wings of an armchair's back.^[7][4]
6. (music) The part of a tuning peg that the fingers turn.^[7]
7. (Colombia, Peru) A looped interchange on a motorway.^[7][15]
8. (masculine and feminine) A flatterer who carries tales;^[7][15] (Mexico, Central America) an informer who listens to conversations for the authorities.^[7][15]

Word family

• orejera
• orejudo
• desorejado
• orejón
• pestorejo
• orejuela

Related words

• aurícula
• auricular
• otitis
• Latin auris
• Portuguese orelha

Usage notes

Set phrases include oreja de abad, a fried pastry and a plant, and con las orejas gachas “crestfallen”.^[7][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. oreja
3. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. oreja
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 293
5. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. auricula
6. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. oreja
7. ^ 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. oreja
8. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 69
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. auris
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. oreja
11. ^ 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. oreja
12. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1177
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 52
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 619
15. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. oreja
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 390
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 764
18. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 81