pequeño

Forms

pequeño (feminine pequeña, masculine plural pequeños, feminine plural pequeñas, superlative pequeñísimo)^[1] Old Spanish wrote pequenno, with ⟨nn⟩ for /ɲ/, and the diminutive pequennuelo.^[2][3]

Etymology

The DLE calls it an expressive word, common to the Romance languages.^[4] Corominas places it in the large Romance family of words for “small” that begin with /p/, have a front vowel and a voiceless stop and often end in -innu, such as Italian piccolo, piccino and French petit; words of the same shape are found only in Portuguese pequeno and in Old Sardinian pikinnu.^[5][6]

In his view it is inherited from Vulgar Latin pitinnus (“small”), found in a Roman inscription of 406, crossed with the expressive root *pikk- of the Italian word.^[5][6] Late Latin had several such words replacing parvus, among them pisinnus in Martial.^[5] Stressed short /i/ became /e/ and the double /nn/ became /ɲ/, which wore away the expressive sound of the word.^[5] Because the /k/ did not palatalise, Corominas thinks the cross may be late; a Latin charter of 921 still shows the uncrossed form.^[5] He rejects Bourciez's *peccuinnus, and finds no source in Germanic or Basque.^[5] Wiktionary, by contrast, derives it from that form, through *pittīnus, perhaps from a Celtic root (compare Proto-Celtic *biggos (“small”)).^[1] The Portuguese word is derived by Nascentes from the same Latin form crossed with the same expressive root.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) uses it of the Cid's daughters in the sense “young”: de días pequeñas son “they are young in years”.^[8][5][6]

Semantic evolution

Its main rival has always been chico, which is more popular and affective, while pequeño is more objective and refined: Berceo uses only chico, and Juan Manuel prefers pequeño so strongly that chico never appears in El Conde Lucanor.^[5] In Galician-Portuguese pequeno is recorded from about 1215, and a vizier of Málaga in the early 11th century was nicknamed Ben-Begenno “son of the little one”, a sign that the word existed in Andalusian Mozarabic.^[5]

Alfonso X's prose already uses it for “small”, “young” and “of little importance”.^[3] Autoridades adds the moral sense “lowly, humble”, as opposed to the powerful and proud.^[9] The Academy's 1899 edition derived it from a Latin word for “very little”, and Alemany in 1917 from pico; the DLE now calls it expressive.^[10][11][4] In the Dominican Republic una pequeña is a small bottle of beer.^[12]

Timeline

• 921 – the Latin phrase arca pittinia in a charter shows the Vulgar Latin word.^[5]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has pequeñas “young”.^[8][6]
• c. 1215 – Galician-Portuguese pequeno is first recorded.^[5]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses pequenno for “small” and “young”.^[3]
• 1490 – first record of pequeñez.^[6]
• 1513 – Nebrija gives Latin parvus and exiguus.^[13]
• 1516 – the first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[14]
• early 17th century – first record of empequeñecer.^[6]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the sense “humble”.^[9]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary first gives an etymology, from Latin.^[10]

Meanings

Adjective

1. small, little: of little size, or smaller than others of its kind: Vivimos en un piso pequeño.^[4][1]
2. Of a person: short.^[4]
3. Brief, short: Dimos un paseo pequeño por el parque.^[4]
4. Slight, of little importance or intensity: Tengo un pequeño corte en el dedo.^[4][15]
5. Modest, of small means or influence: un pequeño agricultor.^[4]
6. young; also as a noun, a child: Los pequeños ya duermen.^[4][16]
7. Lowly, humble, as opposed to the powerful and proud.^[4][9]
8. (Dominican Republic; feminine noun) A small bottle of beer.^[12]

Word family

• pequeñez
• empequeñecer

Related words

• chico
• pituso
• Portuguese pequeno
• Italian piccolo
• French petit

Usage notes

En pequeño means “on a small scale, in miniature”.^[4] chico is the more colloquial and affective synonym.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. pequeño
3. ^ a b c 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. pequeño
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. pequeño
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 484
6. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pequeño
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. pequeno
8. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 386
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 211
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 763
11. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1293
12. ^ a b Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. pequeño
13. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 396
14. ^ 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. pequeño
15. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pequeño
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. pequeño