pastura

Forms

pastura f (plural pasturas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin pastūra (“grazing, pasture”).^[2][3][4][1] Late Latin formed the noun from the stem of pāstus, the past participle of pāscō (“to feed, pasture”), with the suffix -ūra.^[1][5] Lewis and Short find it first in Palladius;^[5][6] Medieval Latin used it for grazing, the right of pasture and pasture land.^[5][6]

The same word is Portuguese pastura, Galician pastura, Catalan pastura, Occitan pastura, French pâture and Italian pastura.^[7][8][1] The Latin verb is inherited from Proto-Italic *pāskō, from Proto-Indo-European *peh₂- (“to protect, shepherd”).^[1][9] Spanish pacer, pasto and pastor come from the same Latin verb.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to a charter of 1201 in Oelschläger's list.^[2][3] DEMel cites pasturas from the Oña charters with the date 1017, and the CDH from the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy): yazra entre las pasturas “he will lie among the pastures”.^[10][11] In the fueros of the early 13th century it means grazing land, beside mountains, springs and rivers: con montes, con fuentes, con pasturas.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's laws use the word for the grass that animals eat, and Berceo, the Libro de Apolonio and the Libro de Alexandre for the meadows themselves.^[12][11] Autoridades gave it two senses, grass or fodder for animals and the portion of food given to oxen at one time, both still in the DLE, which adds the place with grass.^[13][4] Old Spanish also had the verb pasturar “to graze”, which Corominas thinks may be taken from Catalan.^[2][14]

In 19th-century Mexico pasturas was the fodder of an army's horses.^[15] In the Canary Islands it names a cowpat, and figuratively a phlegmatic, sluggish person.^[16] In Guatemala it can also mean the payment for grazing.^[17]

Timeline

• 1201 – first record, in a charter.^[2][3]
• 1223 – the Fuero de Alcalá de Henares, in a manuscript of that year.^[18]
• c. 1236 – Berceo, Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (in a late 13th-century copy).^[11]
• 1256–1300 – the laws of Alfonso X.^[12]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades adds the sense “the portion of food given to oxen at one time”.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy also defines it as the place where cattle graze.^[19]
• 1854 – first record in the Americas, in Nuevo León.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. pasture, fodder: the grass that animals eat: Los pastores bajaron con la pastura para las ovejas.^[4][20][1]
2. The portion of food given to oxen (bueyes) at one time.^[4][20]
3. A place with grass for grazing; pasto.^[4][21]
4. (Canary Islands) A cowpat;^[16] (figurative) a slow, phlegmatic person.^[16]

Word family

• pasturar

Related words

• pasto
• pacer
• pastor
• Latin pāscō
• French pâture

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 331
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pacer
4. ^ 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. pastura
5. ^ a b c Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. pastūra
6. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. pastura
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4842
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. pastura
11. ^ 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. pastura
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. pastura
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 160
14. ^ 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. pasturar
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. pastura
16. ^ a b c Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. pastura
17. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 814
18. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org, p. s.v. pastura
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 647
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pastura
21. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. pastura