pelleja

Forms

pelleja f (plural pellejas)^[1] One manuscript of the Libro de Alexandre has peleja, perhaps under the influence of piel, and pelejo is still common in popular speech, for example in Almería.^[2] Old Aragonese had pelella, Asturian has pelleya and peleya, and the Leonese of Babia pixeicha.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pellicŭla (“small skin, hide”), a diminutive of pellis (“skin, hide”).^[5][1][6][2] The learned doublet is película “film”.^[1][2] The masculine pellejo is recorded as early.^[7][3]

The sense “prostitute” is the same word, Corominas argues, alluding to what the prostitute sells, as Catalan pell and French peau are used familiarly and as Latin scortum “harlot” properly meant “hide”.^[2] He therefore rejects a separate etymon derived from pellex (“concubine”), proposed by Subak.^[2] The Diccionario de Autoridades had already suggested the Latin word for “concubine” as a possible source for this sense.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is in Berceo's Del sacrificio de la misa (1228–1246).^[2] In the Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in a 15th-century copy) the hero boasts that he will strip his enemy of his pelleja, his hide.^[9]

Semantic evolution

In Alfonso X's prose the word means a hide taken from an animal, a tanned skin with its wool, as in the garments made for Adam and Eve from pellejas de ganados muertos “hides of dead livestock”, and the whole fleece of a sheep.^[10] Proverbs pair it with oveja: si de mala parte viene la oveja, allá va la pelleja “if the sheep comes from a bad place, its hide goes the same way” in the Cifar (1300–1305),^[9] and quien tiene ovejas tiene pellejas in Autoridades.^[8]

Covarrubias in 1611 distinguished the woolly pelleja from the pellejo of any animal, and explained the name for a prostitute by Latin scortum.^[11] Autoridades (1737) added the cant sense “skirt” from Hidalgo's vocabulary.^[8][12] The phrases perder, dejar or salvar la pelleja “to lose one's life” or “to save one's skin” are in the Academy's dictionary from 1869.^[13] In the Americas the word is found in Mexico in 1538,^[14] and today means a very old person in Cuba and a wallet in El Salvador.^[15]

Timeline

• 1228–1246 – Berceo's Del sacrificio de la misa has pelleja.^[2][7]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General estoria uses it for tanned hides with the wool and for a sheep's fleece.^[10]
• 1300–1305 – the Libro del cavallero Cifar quotes the proverb of the sheep and its hide.^[9]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's dictionary gives pelleja de animal as Latin pellis.^[2][16]
• 1538 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico, as peleja.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the sense “prostitute”.^[11]
• 1737 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as the hide of an animal, especially of sheep.^[8]
• 1869 – the Academy's dictionary records perder, dejar or salvar la pelleja.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hide or skin taken from an animal's body.^[5][1]
2. A tanned hide with its wool or hair; sheepskin.^[5][17]
3. The whole fleece sheared from an animal.^[5]
4. (colloquial, Spain) A prostitute.^[5][18]
5. (colloquial) An insult for an ill-natured woman; a very thin person.^[17]
6. (Cuba) A very old person.^[15]
7. (El Salvador) A wallet.^[15]

Word family

• pellejo

Related words

• película
• piel
• pelliza
• Latin pellis

Usage notes

Dar, dejar or perder la pelleja means “to die”, and salvar la pelleja “to save one's skin”, like the same phrases with pellejo.^[5][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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 537
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4911
4. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. pelleya
5. ^ 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. pelleja
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. piel
8. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 193
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. pelleja
10. ^ 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. pelleja
11. ^ 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. 1204
12. ^ Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 194
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 589
14. ^ 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. peleja
15. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. pelleja
16. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. pelleja
17. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pelleja
18. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. pelleja