píldora

Forms

píldora f (plural píldoras)^[1] Old Spanish had pillora in the 13th and 14th centuries, pílora in López de Ayala according to Cabrera, and pinnola in a late 13th-century treatise on the diseases of birds.^[2][3] Catalan and Murcian píndola and dialectal píndora show the same dissimilation to /n/.^[3]

Etymology

It continues, by a semi-learned route, inherited from Latin pillula (“little ball; pill”), a variant of pilula.^[3][4][5][6] The Academy's current dictionary gives the classical form, with a single /l/, as the etymon.^[7] The Latin word is a diminutive of pila (“ball”) with -ula.^[8][1] Corominas infers a Vulgar Latin *pilla from the new diminutive with /ll/ that appears in late texts.^[3]

The doubled /l/ was differentiated into /ld/, giving ⟨píldola⟩, and the last /l/ was then dissimilated into /r/.^[3][5] The popular outcome of the same Latin word is pella “ball”, the medieval word for a playing ball.^[4][9]

The word is also Italian pillola, Catalan píndola and Portuguese pirula.^[10][9] French pilule is a borrowing from Latin, first recorded in 1314.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Moamín, the book of hunting animals (1250, in a copy of the second half of the 13th century): a mixture of sumac, cardamom and honey is to be made into pílloras tamannas como auellanas “pills the size of hazelnuts” for the hawks.^[2][12] The spelling píldora is in Alfonso XI's Libro de la montería (1342–1350) and in medical texts from 1381.^[13][14]

Semantic evolution

The pill of medicine is the sense in all periods.^[7][12] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 also recorded an old sense, a ball or wick of tow soaked in a remedy and laid on wounds, and a figurative one, a piece of bad news given to someone, with the phrase dorar la píldora “to sweeten the bad news”.^[15] In the 20th century la píldora came to mean the contraceptive pill above all; the DTME notes that the use began as a colloquial one.^[7][14]

In parts of the Americas píldora is also a baseball (Nicaragua, Venezuela), a lie (Guatemala, Bolivia) or a bullet (Guatemala), and in Puerto Rico a drug.^[16]

Timeline

• 1250 – the Moamín (in a later 13th-century copy) has pílloras.^[2]
• 1342–1350 – píldoras in Alfonso XI's Libro de la montería.^[13][3]
• 1386 – López de Ayala's Libro de la caça de las aves prescribes three pildoras of aloes.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: pildora para purgar, Latin pilula.^[17][3]
• 1512 – the first record from the Americas, in a list of medicines from Puerto Rico.^[18]
• 1817 – the Academy records the phrase dorar la píldora.^[15]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, Latin pilula.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pill: a small ball of medicine mixed with an excipient (excipiente), to be swallowed: Tómate una píldora después de cenar.^[7][1]
2. (by antonomasia) The contraceptive pill.^[7][20]
3. (historical) A ball or wick of tow or lint soaked in a remedy and laid on wounds or sores.^[7]
4. (colloquial) A piece of bad news or a sorrow given to someone.^[7]
5. (Nicaragua, Venezuela) A baseball;^[16] (Guatemala, Bolivia) a lie.^[16]

Related words

• pella
• pelota
• Latin pilula
• Catalan píndola
• Italian pillola

Usage notes

Dorar la píldora is to soften bad news or an annoyance, and also to flatter someone to get something.^[7] Tragarse la píldora is to be taken in by something, or to have to accept unpleasant news.^[20]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. píldora
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 466
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pelota
5. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. píldora
6. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. píldora
7. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. píldora
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. pilula
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6507
11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
12. ^ 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. píldora
13. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. píldora
14. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. píldora
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 675
16. ^ 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. píldora
17. ^ 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. píldora
18. ^ 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. píldora
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 780
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. píldora