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periquito

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word periquito

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
c. 1565 Fray Pedro de Aguado, in Venezuela More words from the 16th century
Ultimate origin
Spanish perico,-ito
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Spanish periquito
English parakeet

Pronunciation

  • /peɾiˈkito/, [pe.ɾiˈki.t̪o][1]

Forms

periquito m (plural periquitos)[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish perico + -ito, with the diminutive suffix.[1][2][3] perico “parrot” is the personal name Perico, a pet form of Pero, that is, Pedro “Peter”, given to the bird for its almost human chatter.[4][5][6] The diminutive is recorded about a century before the simple word: the one about 1565, the other in 1670.[5][4]

Friederici notes that some dictionaries took the word for an American Indian one, but it belongs neither to Tupi nor to the languages of the Antilles nor to Quechua: the native peoples had it from the Portuguese and the Spaniards.[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record, according to Corominas and Friederici, is in the chronicle of Fray Pedro de Aguado, about 1565, in Venezuela: vnos papagayos pequeños a quien llaman periquitos “some small parrots which they call periquitos”.[5][7] The CDH dates the same passage of his Historia de Santa Marta y Nuevo Reino de Granada c. 1573–1581.[8]

Semantic evolution

In the same years Periquito was a pet name for a man called Pedro: Saint Teresa writes in 1576 of Periquito su hermano, and Góngora's ballads have Periquito de Umbera.[8] The bird is recorded in Santo Domingo in 1583 and in Peru in 1599, beside loritos “little parrots”.[9] An English text of 1596 has Paraquitos, and Champlain brought the word into French from the Spanish West Indies in 1599.[10][7]

The Academy's dictionary of 1843 described it as a small parrot with blue wings and yellow beak and feet.[11] Salvá (1846) and Domínguez (1846–1847) also give a nautical sense, the mizzen topgallant yard, sail and mast.[12][13] Today it is above all the budgerigar of Australia, a common cage bird.[2][14][15]

In the Canary Islands the word names the garden balsam, Impatiens balsamina, recorded by Viera y Clavijo between 1799 and 1812.[16][17] The Spanish of the Americas has local senses: in Venezuela ornaments and a dish of scrambled eggs with chorizo, in Honduras the buttocks, in Puerto Rico cocaine; in Chile hablar periquitos of someone is to speak ill of them.[18][19][2] In Spain VOX records a colloquial sense “youngster, adolescent”.[14]

Timeline

  • c. 1565 – Fray Pedro de Aguado names small parrots periquitos in Venezuela.[5][7]
  • 1576 – Saint Teresa uses Periquito as a pet name.[8]
  • 1583 – the bird is recorded in Santo Domingo.[9]
  • 1596 – an English text has Paraquitos.[10]
  • 1599 – Champlain brings the word into French.[7]
  • 1670 – the simple word perico is first recorded for the bird.[4]
  • 1799–1812 – Viera y Clavijo records it as the Canarian name of the garden balsam.[16]
  • 1843 – the Academy defines it as a small species of parrot.[11]
  • 1846 – Salvá records the nautical sense.[12]
  • 1884 – the Academy explains it as a diminutive of perico.[3]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A budgerigar or small parakeet; a small parrot (loro, perico): Tenemos un periquito azul en la cocina.[19][2][1]
  2. (nautical) The mizzen topgallant sail, and its yard and mast.[12][15]
  3. (Canary Islands) The garden balsam, Impatiens balsamina.[17]
  4. (Spain, colloquial) A youngster, a person between adolescence and adulthood.[14]
  5. (Puerto Rico, slang) Cocaine.[18]
  6. (Honduras) The buttocks.[18]
  7. (Venezuela) A dish of scrambled eggs with finely chopped chorizo.[18]

Usage notes

Periquito entre ellas is a colloquial name for a man who likes to be always among women, like perico entre ellas.[19][2] The DLE has a separate periquito “of the RCD Espanyol football club; its player or supporter”, which it derives from Catalan: in the 1920s the humorist V. Castanys drew the club's few supporters as four cats like the cat Periquito.[19][14][1] From it comes the back-formation perico with the same sense.[6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. periquito
  3. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 817
  4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. perico
  5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 491
  6. ^ a b 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. perico
  7. ^ a b c d e Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 491
  8. ^ 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. periquito
  9. ^ 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. periquito
  10. ^ a b Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. periquito
  11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 553
  12. ^ a b c Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 830
  13. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1362
  14. ^ a b c d Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. periquito
  15. ^ a b Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
  16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. periquito
  17. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. periquito
  18. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. periquito
  19. ^ 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. periquito

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Cite this entry

“Periquito.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/periquito. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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