pajar

Forms

pajar m (plural pajares)^[1] Old Spanish texts write paiar, pajar and paxar; an Aragonese charter of 1101 has pallar.^[2][3][4] Asturian has payar and the Leonese of Babia pachar.^[5]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Late Latin paleare (“heap of straw”), as the REW and García de Diego derive it.^[6][5][7] Wiktionary and the Academy's 2001 dictionary give instead the Latin paleārium (“chaff loft”),^[1][8] which García de Diego takes as the source of the synonym pajero;^[5] the current DLE treats the word as a Spanish formation from paja with the suffix -ar,^[9] and Corominas lists it among the derivatives of that noun.^[3][10]

The Latin form gave Galician pallar and Asturian payar;^[11][5] with the other Latin suffix it is Portuguese palheiro, Catalan paller, French pailler and Italian pagliaio.^[11][5][12] Both Latin nouns are derivatives of palea (“chaff”), the source of the Spanish noun,^[13][12] which goes back to *palejā and *pelh₁- (“chaff”).^[14][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH's first record is pallar in an Aragonese charter of 1101; the charter of 1056 that Oelschläger also cites is Catalan.^[3] The first hits in Castilian in the CDH are in the town charters: the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) has a heading on the man who sets fire to a paiar, and the Fuero de Alcalá (c. 1235) fines whoever breaks into a house, a mill, a hut or a pajar.^[2] The sense is the barn or loft where the straw is kept.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

The Diccionario de Autoridades (1737) defined it as the place where straw is shut up and kept, and quoted the Quijote, where Don Quixote sleeps in a garret that had once served as a pajar.^[15] It also recorded quitar cruces de un pajar, a phrase for a task full of difficulties, and the proverb pajar viejo presto se enciende “an old straw loft soon catches fire”, a warning that age is no safeguard against temptation.^[15] Terreros (1788) took the first phrase as an attempt at something impossible or useless,^[16] and the Academy from 1817 to 1899 explained the proverb as the passion that, once it takes hold of an old man, he can hardly overcome.^[17][18]

Domínguez (1846) noted a Galician sense, a large stack of straw built in the open, wide at the base and pointed at the top.^[19] The first record from the Americas is from Quito in 1614.^[20] In Tenerife and La Gomera pajar is a hut or shed, usually thatched.^[21]

Timeline

• 1101 – pallar in an Aragonese charter.^[3][10]
• 1218–c. 1250 – paiar in the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes.^[2]
• c. 1235 – pajar in the Fuero de Alcalá.^[2]
• a. 1279 – the Fuero de Alba de Tormes writes paxar.^[2]
• 1591 – Percyvall: a place to keep chaff or straw.^[22]
• 1614 – the first record in the Americas, in Quito.^[20]
• 1737 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the word, quitar cruces de un pajar and the proverb of the old straw loft.^[15]
• 1846 – Domínguez records the Galician sense of a straw stack.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hayloft or barn where straw (paja) is kept: Subieron la paja seca al pajar.^[9][23]
2. A haystack.^[1]
3. (Canary Islands) A hut or shed, usually with a thatched roof.^[21]

Related words

• paja
• Latin palea
• Catalan paller
• Portuguese palheiro

Usage notes

Buscar una aguja en un pajar “to look for a needle in a haystack” is the usual idiom for a hopeless search.^[23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 342
4. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. pajar
5. ^ a b c d e García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6163
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
8. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. pajar
9. ^ a b c 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. pajar
10. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. paja
11. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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 c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 81
16. ^ 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. 3, 7
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 626
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 727
19. ^ a b 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. 2, 1313
20. ^ 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. pajar
21. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. pajar
22. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 183
23. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pajar