pavo

Forms

pavo m (plural pavos)^[1] In medieval Aragon the word had the form pago, which Alfonso de la Torre also used in Castile about 1440;^[2] Castilian pavo itself is not recorded before Nebrija.^[2] Autoridades notes that pago was the older form of the word.^[3] Asturian has pavu.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pavus (“peacock”), a variant of pāvō found both in early Latin and in the late period.^[2][5][6] Wiktionary derives it from the classical form itself and calls the word a doublet of pavón.^[1] Corominas separates the two Latin forms: the oblique stem of the classical form gave the older Castilian pavón, used by Berceo, Juan Ruiz and Juan Manuel, and the Romance forms Portuguese pavão, Catalan paó, French paon and Italian pavone, while the variant gave pavo, the Catalan and Aragonese pago and the rare Old Occitan pau.^[2][7]

Corominas takes the form with /g/ to be a word of eastern Mozarabic that spread to Aragon and Catalonia, because the bird belongs to warm climates and the form is most at home in the Balearics and Valencia; the Castilian form may in the same way come from western Mozarabic.^[2] In his Catalan dictionary he again derives the Catalan word from the Latin variant by way of Mozarabic.^[8]

The Latin word is probably of eastern origin and is compared with Ancient Greek ταώς (taṓs, “peacock”).^[9][10] Wiktionary considers a borrowing from the Greek word likely, or else an imitative origin, comparing paupulō (“to cry like a peacock”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

All the medieval forms named only the peacock.^[2][5] The first record, in the Fueros de Aragón of about 1300, lists the bird among farmyard animals: aquellas aves o bestias que crian en casa, assí como pagos o gallinas o palomas “those birds or beasts that are reared at home, such as peacocks or hens or doves”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The turkey, a bird of North America, reached Spain only well after the discovery of the Americas, and it was given the name of the handsome bird of the Old World; the peacock was from then on called pavo real, that is “the true pavo”.^[2][5][11] The peacock sense was the only one until the Golden Age.^[5] Percyvall still glossed pavo as “a peacocke” in 1591, but Covarrubias in 1611 gave gallo de las Indias as another name for it.^[12][13] Autoridades described the turkey as a domestic bird, much larger than the hen, like the peacock in most respects but with coarser, mostly black feathers and tasty flesh.^[3]

In colloquial use pavo is a dull or naive person.^[6][14] Spanish America has many senses of its own: a stowaway in Bolivia, Chile, Panama and Peru, someone who gets into a show without paying in Bolivia and Ecuador, a teenager in the Dominican Republic, Venezuela and Paraguay, and a large kite in Chile.^[6][14][15] The feminine pava is also the kettle for heating the water for mate in Argentina and Paraguay, named, Corominas thinks, from its pot-bellied shape, like a brooding hen.^[6][2] Tagalog and Cebuano borrowed the word as pabo.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1300 – pago in the Fueros de Aragón, the first record.^[2][5]
• c. 1440 – Alfonso de la Torre uses pago in Castile.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records pava o pavo o pavon, with Latin pavus.^[2]
• 1518 – the first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme: muchos pabos cozidos e asados “many turkeys boiled and roasted”.^[16]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses pavo as “a peacocke”.^[12]
• 1611 – Covarrubias gives gallo de las Indias as another name of the bird.^[13]
• 1737 – Autoridades describes the turkey and names the peacock pavo real.^[5][3]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary says the bird is native to America.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy derives pavo from pavón.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. The turkey, a large farmyard bird of American origin with a bare neck and red wattles.^[6][1]
2. (colloquial) A dull or gullible person; also used as an adjective: No seas pavo, que te están engañando.^[6][14]
3. (Bolivia, Chile, Panama, Peru) A stowaway.^[6][14]
4. (Bolivia, Ecuador) A gatecrasher at a show.^[6][14]
5. (Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Paraguay) A teenager.^[14]
6. (Chile) A large kite.^[14][15]
7. (dated) The peacock, now usually pavo real.^[1][5]
8. (Spain, slang) A euro.^[1]

Word family

• pavada
• pavero
• paviota
• pava
• pavitonto
• pavipollo
• pavezno

Related words

• pavón
• pavonear
• pavo real
• Latin pavo
• Portuguese pavão

Usage notes

The female is pava, recorded by Nebrija in 1495.^[5][2] Set phrases with the word include pavo real “peacock”, edad del pavo and subírsele el pavo a alguien.^[1][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 441
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. pavo
4. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. pavu
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pavo
6. ^ 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. pavo
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. pavus
8. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 6, 241
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 531
11. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. pavo
12. ^ a b Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 186
13. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1200
14. ^ a b c d e f g Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. pavo
15. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 633
16. ^ 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. pavo
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 650
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 802