parra

Forms

parra f (plural parras)^[1]

Etymology

It is of uncertain origin, a word shared by the three Ibero-Romance languages.^[2][3] Corominas considers it probably borrowed from Gothic *𐍀𐌰𐍂𐍂𐌰 (*parra), an n-stem with the oblique ⟨-ans⟩, “enclosure, trellis, arbour”, and the DLE gives the same source with a “perhaps”.^[2][4][1] His main evidence is Old Occitan, where a feminine parran or parra “enclosed land beside a house, garden” occurs in charters of the Rouergue from 1120; a feminine in ⟨-an⟩ is so unusual that he can explain it only from a Gothic base of this kind.^[2] He supposes that the first sense of the Spanish word was “arbour, trellis”, which would explain parrilla “grill”, and links it with western Asturian parreiro “granary” and with the type parricus (“granary, enclosure, fold”), the source of parque.^[2][3] The further origin of this family, shared by Romance and Germanic, remains uncertain: it cannot be Latin, and it could be pre-Roman as well as Germanic, though an initial /p/ is rare in Celtic, Germanic and Ibero-Basque alike.^[2] The Medieval Latin word is first attested in the Lex Ripuaria, and it may be either the source of *parrik or a borrowing from it.^[1][5]

García de Diego calls it pre-Roman and of unknown origin; he reports that Meyer-Lübke started from a base ⟨*parra⟩ that may be Germanic, that Diez related it to pergula, and that Körting thought of parra, the name of a bird.^[6] The Academy's 1884 dictionary derived it from a Celtic ⟨bar⟩ “branch; bunch of grapes”, and Covarrubias reported Guadix's view that it was Arabic, offering Greek and Hebrew guesses of his own.^[7][8]

The same word is Portuguese parra and Catalan parra (recorded in 1371); Portuguese also has parreira “trained vine”, already in Camões.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) has a heading „De aquel que parra cortare” “of one who cuts down a vine”, and the Fuero de Brihuega (c. 1242) fines anyone who cuts a parra that has been set up in a settlement.^[9] The DCECH's first record is the Aragonese Vidal Mayor (c. 1250), where the word names the frame on which the vine is trained: „si la uid fuere ordenada en la parra que sea puesto en fustes” “if the vine is arranged on the trellis set on posts”.^[2][9] DEMel also lists an item of 1144 in the Oña charter collection.^[10]

Semantic evolution

In the translation of Gower's Confessio Amantis the word means “vine, vine stock”, a sense also found in Portuguese, but Corominas thinks it secondary; the common sense, a vine trained high, is already in the Escorial glossary of about 1400, which glosses it with Latin pergorium, a variant of pergula.^[2] Nebrija gave Parra o vid o cepa as vitis.^[11] Covarrubias (1611) described it as the vine that rises high and spreads over the pergola, and Autoridades added that it was trained on timbers to adorn gardens and courtyards.^[8][12] In the Americas it is recorded from 1571 in Mexico, and in 1578 Venezuela had parras que dan 3 veces uvas en el año “vines that bear grapes three times a year”.^[13] The phrase subirse a la parra “to fly into a rage” was in the Academy's dictionary by 1884; the DLE now also gives it the senses “to give oneself airs” and “to overstep one's authority”.^[7][4] In Guatemala parra is a liana whose sap travellers drink.^[4]

Timeline

• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes: „De aquel que parra cortare”.^[9]
• c. 1250 – the Vidal Mayor uses parra for the trellis of a vine.^[2][9]
• c. 1400 – the Escorial glossary glosses it as Latin pergorium.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: Parra o vid o cepa = vitis.^[11]
• 1570 – Autoridades' first quotation, from Mármol.^[2]
• 1571 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[13]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the vine spreading over a pergola.^[8]
• 1884 – the Academy gives a Celtic etymology and the phrase subirse a la parra.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A grapevine, especially one trained up on supports so that its shoots spread widely, as over a trellis or pergola.^[4][1][14]
2. (Guatemala) A kind of liana that gives off a water drunk by travellers.^[4]

Word family

• parral
• emparrado
• aparragarse
• parrilla
• emparrar

Related words

• parque
• Medieval Latin parricus
• Portuguese parreira

Usage notes

Subirse a la parra is colloquial for giving oneself airs, overstepping one's authority or flying into a rage;^[4] parra de Corinto is the seedless grape that gives currants.^[4] A separate word parra (DLE parra²) is a low, wide earthenware jar with two handles, used mainly for honey; the DLE and the DCECH call it of unknown or uncertain origin, the DCECH dates it to an Aragonese inventory of 1403 and to Pedro de Alcalá (1505), who glosses parra de barro with Arabic tabáyra, and García de Diego derives it from a Celtic *parium “cauldron”.^[15][16][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 409
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. parra
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. parra
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6253
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4814
7. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 792
8. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1195
9. ^ 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. parra
10. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. parra
11. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 393
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 134
13. ^ 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. parra
14. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. parra
15. ^ 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. parra2
16. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 412
17. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4812