pólipo

Forms

pólipo m (plural pólipos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin polypus (“octopus; nasal polyp”), a learned word.^[2][1][3][4] Latin borrowed it early from Ancient Greek πολύπους (polúpous), literally “many-footed”, formed from πολύς (polús, “many”) and πούς (poús, “foot”); the variant with long ō comes from Doric πώλυπος (pṓlupos).^[1][5][6] In Latin it meant the octopus and, by transfer, a growth in the nose.^[7][4][6]

The inherited form of the same Latin word is pulpo “octopus”, first recorded in Juan Ruiz;^[4] Corominas attributes its ⟨u⟩ to a dialect feature of the Cantabrian coast.^[8][3] The learned form took the medical and zoological senses.^[3][4] French likewise has the learned French polype beside poulpe and pieuvre.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the CDH, about 1445, still means the octopus: Pero Díaz de Toledo compares the flatterer to the fish called pólipo, which takes on the colour of the ground beneath it.^[10] The medical sense follows about 1450 in the Arte complida de cirugía, among growths removed from the nose.^[10][11]

Semantic evolution

Corominas and Segura Munguía date the learned word only to 1555, with its change of sense from the octopus.^[3][4] The Academy's 1817 dictionary defined the medical sense as a soft fleshy growth of the mucous membranes, especially of the nose, which grows back like the octopus if cut and not removed at the root; it also described tiny gelatinous animals with tentacles that multiply by budding.^[12] Later 19th-century editions added the sense “octopus”, which some naturalists used.^[13][14] In Lima in the 1790s the word was used of animals that regenerate and of growths of the heart.^[15] Today the zoological sense is the fixed, tube-shaped stage of cnidarians, beside the free-swimming medusa.^[2][16][11]

Timeline

• c. 1445 – Pero Díaz de Toledo uses it of the octopus.^[10]
• c. 1450 – the Arte complida de cirugía uses it of a nasal polyp.^[10]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia glosses Latin polipus.^[10]
• 1555 – Corominas's date for the learned word.^[3]
• 1792 – first record from the Americas, in Lima.^[15]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary gives the medical and zoological senses.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the Greek etymology, “many” and “foot”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (medicine) A polyp: a growth, usually on a stalk, that forms on the mucous membranes of the nose, the colon, the uterus or the vagina.^[2][17][11]
2. (zoology) The sac-shaped form of cnidarians, fixed to the sea bottom, with tentacles around the mouth: Los arrecifes crecen gracias a millones de pólipos diminutos.^[2][16][1]
3. (rare) An octopus; pulpo.^[2][16]

Word family

• polipero

Related words

• pulpo
• polipodio
• Latin polypus
• French polype

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e 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. pólipo
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pulpo
4. ^ a b c d e Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 577
5. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
6. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. pólipo
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 689
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. poulpe
10. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. pólipo
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. pólipo
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 687
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 574
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 794
15. ^ 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. pólipo
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pólipo
17. ^ Cortés Gabaudan, Francisco (dir.), Dicciomed: Diccionario médico-biológico, histórico y etimológico, Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca, https://dicciomed.usal.es, p. s.v. pólipo