perdiz

Forms

perdiz f (plural perdices)^[1] Old Spanish texts write the plural perdizes, beside perdices and perdises.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin perdīx (“partridge”).^[4][5][6][1] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek πέρδιξ (pérdīx, “partridge”).^[6][1][7] Corominas notes that it was surely in general use from the beginning, and that it is common to all the western Romance languages.^[4]

The same Latin word is Portuguese perdiz, Galician perdiz, Asturian perdiz, Aragonese perdiz, Catalan perdiu, Occitan perditz, French perdrix and Italian perdice;^[8][9][1] Italian pernice owes its form to coturnix (“quail”).^[8][9][1] Corominas suggests that the southern Catalan baldriga, a shearwater, is a Mozarabic descendant of the Latin word, rearranged through Arabic.^[4]

Frisk explained the Greek word as a derivative of πέρδομαι (pérdomai, “to fart”), from the whirring noise of a partridge taking off;^[10][1] Beekes considers its suffix a mark of a Pre-Greek word.^[10][1] Bénaben notes that the explanation from the verb goes back to antiquity.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) lists the game that hounds may start: o puerco montes, o çieruo, o gamo, o liebre, o coneio, o perdiz “or wild boar, or stag, or fallow deer, or hare, or rabbit, or partridge”.^[3] The Fuero de Madrid already has the plural perdizes in a text that is still half Latin, known from a copy of the first half of the 13th century.^[3] Corominas's earliest examples are of about 1330, in Juan Manuel and Juan Ruiz.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

The partridge appears in the medieval fueros as game and as food sold in the market, and in Abraham of Toledo's Moamín among the good meats.^[3] Covarrubias in 1611 praised it as a bird fine in its plumage and good to eat, and quoted Martial on the two kinds.^[12] The Academy's dictionaries from 1817 recorded the proverb perdiz azorada, medio asada, because a partridge tired out by the goshawk is more tender.^[13][14]

In the Americas the name passed to native birds: the tinamous, called perdiz in Costa Rica, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay and Uruguay, and in Puerto Rico and Cuba a kind of ground dove.^[15][16][1] In Argentina hacerse perdiz meant “to run off and hide”.^[17] The verb desperdigar “to scatter” alludes to a covey of partridges breaking up when the hunter comes near.^[5][11]

Timeline

• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes names perdiz among the game.^[3]
• c. 1230–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre says that the enemy would dare stand up to the Greeks no more than a partridge to a goshawk.^[3][2]
• c. 1330 – Juan Manuel and Juan Ruiz use the word, the first records Corominas gives.^[4][5]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin perdix and records perdiguero “partridge dog”.^[18][5]
• 1535 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[19]
• c. 1600 – desperdigar “to scatter” is first recorded, in the Inca Garcilaso.^[4][5]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the red-billed and the grey partridge.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin perdix.^[20]

Meanings

Noun

1. partridge: a game bird of the pheasant family with a plump body, small head and grey-brown plumage with reddish markings, prized by hunters for its meat: Volvieron del monte con cuatro perdices.^[6][1]
2. (Costa Rica, Ecuador, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay) A tinamou.^[15][1]
3. (Puerto Rico, Cuba) A ground dove.^[15][16]

Word family

• perdigón
• perdiguero
• desperdigar
• perdigar

Related words

• Latin perdix
• Portuguese perdiz
• Catalan perdiu

Usage notes

Perdiz blanca is a slightly larger relative with white plumage and feathered feet.^[6] Wiktionary lists set phrases such as marear la perdiz and vivieron felices y comieron perdices “they lived happily and ate partridges”.^[1] Corominas notes the rare use of el perdiz for the male bird in an Argentine popular song.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. perdiz
3. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. perdiz
4. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 488
5. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. perdiz
6. ^ a b c d 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. perdiz
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6404
9. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. perdix
10. ^ a b 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. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. perdiz
12. ^ 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. 1206
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 660
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 593
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. perdiz
16. ^ a b Suárez, Constantino (1921), Vocabulario cubano, La Habana: Librería Cervantes / Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Compañía, p. 411
17. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 371
18. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 396
19. ^ 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. perdiz
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 814