pájaro

Forms

pájaro m (plural pájaros)^[1] Old Spanish wrote pássaro, pasaro and páxaro;^[2][1][3] Corominas dates pássaro to the 13th century and pájaro to the 14th.^[2][1][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish pássaro, inherited from Vulgar Latin passar (“bird”), the popular form of Latin passer (“sparrow”) that the Appendix Probi corrects.^[2][4][1][5] Wiktionary and Houaiss reconstruct a second-declension form *passarum.^[1][6] The ending may have been helped by words such as bárbaro and cántaro.^[7] The meaning widened from the sparrow to any small bird.^[8][9]

The same word is Portuguese pássaro, Galician paxaro, Asturian páxaru, Aragonese paixaro, Catalan pàssera, Italian passero and Romanian pasăre (“bird”); French passereau is a diminutive.^[10][11][12]

The origin of the Latin word is unknown to the OLD and the DHLF.^[13][12] De Vaan cites Schrijver's derivation from Proto-Indo-European *p(e)t-tro- (“who flies, bird”), the root of penna, through Proto-Italic *pattro-, but finds it uncertain.^[14] Wiktionary gives this and a second theory, and calls peña a distant cognate.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Libro de Alexandre (1230–1250) has the plural pasaros and paxaros.^[3] In the Alfonsine Moamín it is a class of small birds: todas estas aues son natura de pasaros “all these birds are of the nature of small birds”.^[15]

Semantic evolution

About 1495 Nebrija rendered paxaro “in general” as Latin auis and paxaro pequeño as auicula, so the word already covered birds in general.^[16] Cervantes has the proverb mas vale paxaro en mano, que buytre bolando “a bird in the hand is worth more than a vulture flying”;^[17] the modern form is más vale pájaro en mano que ciento volando.^[1] In 1611 the spleen of a pig was called pajarilla, the source of alegrarse las pajarillas “to be delighted”.^[2]

By 1846 the word also meant a very crafty person and a man who excels in some field, especially public affairs.^[18] The Academy added the zoological sense, a passerine, in 1899.^[19] Today it also means a decoy partridge and, colloquially, the penis, and the feminine pájara is a cyclist's sudden collapse.^[4] In Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Panama, the Dominican Republic and among Spanish speakers in the United States it is a derogatory word for a homosexual man;^[4][20] in Colombia it named the hired killers of the years of the political violence.^[20] In the Canaries the blue chaffinch of Tenerife is the pájaro azul or pájaro de la cumbre.^[21]

Timeline

• 1230–1250 – pasaros and paxaros in the Libro de Alexandre.^[3]
• 1250–1300 – the Alfonsine Moamín uses pasaros for small birds.^[15]
• 14th century – the date Corominas gives for the form pájaro.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin auis for paxaro in general.^[16]
• 1529 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[22]
• 1548 – pájaros carpinteros “woodpeckers” in Santo Domingo.^[22]
• 1611 – pajarilla “spleen”.^[2]
• 1737 – pajarraco.^[2]
• 1836–1844 – Webb and Berthelot record the Canarian name pájaro de la cumbre.^[21]
• 1899 – the Academy derives it from Latin passer and adds the zoological sense.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. bird, especially a small one: Un pájaro cantaba en la rama.^[4][1]
2. A crafty person with few scruples; also as an adjective: No te fíes de él, es un pájaro.^[4][1]
3. A male partridge used as a decoy (perdigón).^[4]
4. (colloquial) The penis.^[4][1]
5. (zoology) A passerine bird.^[4]
6. (colloquial, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Panama, Dominican Republic) A homosexual man.^[4][20]
7. (obsolete) A man who excels in some field, especially in politics.^[4]
8. (feminine, cycling) pájara: a sudden physical collapse that stops a rider keeping the pace.^[4]

Word family

• pajarero
• pajarraco
• espantapájaros
• pajarera
• pajarita
• pajarito
• pajarón
• pajarilla

Related words

• Latin passer
• Portuguese pássaro

Usage notes

Common phrases are matar dos pájaros de un tiro “to kill two birds with one stone” and tener pájaros en la cabeza “to have one's head in the clouds”.^[1][23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pájaro
3. ^ a b c d Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
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. pájaro
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
6. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. pássaro
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. pájaro
8. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. pájaro
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. pássaro
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 539
12. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
13. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
15. ^ 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. pájaro
16. ^ a b 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. pájaro
17. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 819
18. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 1313
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 727
20. ^ 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. pájaro
21. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. pájaro
22. ^ 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. pájaro
23. ^ León, Víctor (1980), Diccionario de argot español y lenguaje popular, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, p. s.v. pájaro