pelo

Forms

pelo m (plural pelos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pilus (“a hair”).^[2][3][4][1]

The same Latin word is Portuguese pelo, Catalan pèl, French poil, Italian pelo and Romanian păr.^[5][6] Meyer-Lübke takes the Portuguese word from Spanish, while Nascentes derives it from Latin, its ⟨l⟩ kept by analogy with cabelo.^[5][7]

The further origin of pilus is uncertain.^[1] Older sources reconstructed a PIE *pilo- (“hair”), with pilleus (“felt cap”) and Ancient Greek πῖλος (pîlos, “felt”) as cognates, but Wiktionary notes that this is no longer accepted.^[1] De Vaan lists pila (“ball”) and compilāre (“to rob”) among its derivatives.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) uses the plural for the hair of the head: the Cid has his mail hood down and cofia sobre los pelos “a coif over his hair”.^[9][3][2]

Semantic evolution

In Catalan, French and Italian the word still means the hair of the body and of animals.^[2] In Spanish it has partly ousted cabello, which is no longer the everyday word, so that pelo also means the hair of the head; in Sardinia and southern France the Latin word has replaced capillus altogether.^[2][5] Nebrija glossed it as hair of any kind, Latin pilus, and Covarrubias as fine hair.^[10][11] The Diccionario de Autoridades gives body hair, the hair of the head and the down of birds.^[12]

Covarrubias recorded the proverb Del lobo un pelo, y esse del copete “From the wolf, one hair, and that one from the forelock” and the phrase estar en pelo, of a horse handed over without its harness.^[11] Corominas notes venir a pelo “to come in handy” in Ruiz de Alarcón and, in Argentina, pelo for the colour of a horse's coat.^[2] In Honduras, Nicaragua and Bolivia it names the silk of an ear of maize, and in Chile the thin skin of a potato.^[13]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has pelos for the hair of the head.^[9][3]
• 1256 – the Alfonsine translation of the Picatrix writes the Latinising pilos.^[14]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Latin pilus.^[10]
• 1521 – the first record from the Americas, in Cuba, of the pile of silk.^[15]
• 1555 – the derivative pelambre is first recorded.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the proverb Del lobo un pelo, y esse del copete.^[11]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the hair of the head as a separate sense.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin pilus.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hair: a thin horny filament that grows from the skin of animals, especially mammals.^[4][1]
2. Hair collectively; the fur or coat of an animal.^[4][1]
3. The hair of the human head: Se cortó el pelo.^[4][1]
4. A tiny amount, a trifle: por un pelo “by a hair's breadth”.^[4][1]
5. The coat or colour of horses and other animals.^[4]
6. The down of some fruits, such as peaches, and of the leaves and stems of some plants.^[4]
7. The nap or pile of a fabric.^[4]
8. A fine thread of wool, silk or the like; raw silk.^[4]
9. The fine down of birds under the outer feathers.^[4]
10. An opaque streak that lowers the value of a gem.^[4]

Word family

• pelaje
• pelambre
• pelillo
• peloso
• peludo
• pelusa
• espeluznar
• crecepelo
• pelín
• pelirrojo
• terciopelo
• contrapelo

Related words

• pelar
• piloso
• depilar
• cabello
• Latin pilus
• Portuguese pelo

Usage notes

Common phrases include tomar el pelo “to pull someone's leg”, no tener pelos en la lengua “not to mince one's words” and con pelos y señales “in full detail”.^[1] Pelo is also the first-person singular present of pelar.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 465
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pelo
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. pelo
5. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5034
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. pelo
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. pelo
10. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 395
11. ^ 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. 1202
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. pelo
13. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. pelo
14. ^ 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. pelo
15. ^ 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. pelo
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 808