pedazo

Forms

pedazo m (plural pedazos)^[1] Old Spanish pedaço had a voiceless ⟨ç⟩, as Nebrija and Alonso de Palencia show; spellings with ⟨z⟩ occur only in early documents that do not tell the two sounds apart.^[2] Charters of the 11th century have petaco, petazo and pedaços.^[2][3] Popular speech has peazo and piazo, and Navarre petacho.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish pedaço, inherited from Vulgar Latin pitaccium (“piece of leather, patch”).^[2][5][6][1] The Vulgar Latin form shifts the double consonant of pittacium and is found in a Latin veterinary treatise of the 4th century, the Mulomedicina Chironis.^[2][6] The Latin word, common from Petronius on, meant a piece of leather, a flap sewn onto a tunic, a note written on a scrap and a label; it is from Ancient Greek πιττάκιον (pittákion, “writing tablet, label, note”).^[2][7][1]

The same word is Portuguese pedaço, recorded in the Latin of Portuguese documents of the 10th century.^[2][8] Catalan pedaç and Occitan pedaç mean only “patch” or a scrap of cloth, and the word does not survive elsewhere in Romance.^[2][9]

Beekes considers the origin of the Greek word unknown; he cites the view that it came from Thrace by way of Lesbos and rejects a link with Ancient Greek πίσσα (píssa, “pitch”).^[10] Gómez de Silva, by contrast, thinks it probably belongs with the word for pitch.^[11] Corominas follows Diez in tracing Italian petecchia (“red spot on the skin”), the source of Spanish petequia, to the plural πιττάκια (pittákia) “plasters”, but Italian dictionaries derive it from a Latin diminutive of impetīgō.^[2][12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is petaco in a Leonese charter of 1063, and DEMel has petazo in the cartulary of Cardeña in 1064.^[2][5][3] In the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) Isaiah prescribes un pedaço de figos “a cake of figs” to be pressed on a sore.^[14]The Lapidario of Alfonso X compares a white stone to pedaço de nieue elada “a piece of frozen snow”.^[15]

Semantic evolution

Corominas notes that the word has been in general use in every period.^[2] Autoridades defined it as a part separated from a whole and also any part of a physical or moral whole, and recorded pedazo del alma, del corazón or de las entrañas as words of endearment that mothers use for small children.^[16] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 added pedazo de alcornoque, de animal or de bruto for a stupid person, and traced the word to an old verb for “to bite”.^[17] The modern dictionary describes pedazo de before a noun or adjective as a colloquial intensifier.^[6] In Puerto Rico a pedazo is a portion of heroin of about 30 grams.^[18]

Timeline

• 1063 – petaco in a Leonese charter.^[2][5]
• 1064 – petazo in the cartulary of Cardeña.^[3]
• c. 1200 – pedaço in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[14]
• 1250–1279 – the Lapidario of Alfonso X.^[15]
• 1444 – first record of the derivative despedazar in the BDELC.^[5]
• 1512 – first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico: 1 pedazo de lienzo de 7 varas “a piece of linen of seven yards”.^[19]
• 1884 – the Academy records pedazo de bruto for a fool.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A piece or portion separated from a whole: Me dio un pedazo de queso.^[6][1]
2. Any part of a whole, physical or abstract.^[6]
3. (colloquial) Followed by de, it strengthens the noun or adjective after it: ¡pedazo de idiota!^[6][20]
4. (Puerto Rico, drugs) A portion of heroin of about 30 grams.^[18]

Word family

• despedazar
• apedazar
• pedacito
• pedazuelo

Related words

• petequia
• Latin pittacium
• Portuguese pedaço

Usage notes

Pedazo de mi alma or de mi corazón is said to a person one loves dearly, especially a child.^[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, 456
3. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pedazo
6. ^ a b c d e f 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. pedazo
7. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon
9. ^ 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)
10. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
12. ^ Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli
13. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
15. ^ 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)
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro
17. ^ 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)
18. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
19. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos