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picante

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word picante

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1596 López Pinciano, Philosofía antigua poética More words from the 16th century
Ultimate origins
Latin *piccoSpanish -nte
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin beccus
French bec
Romanian bec
Italian becco
Spanish pico
Spanish picar
Spanish picante
From the same root
Italian beccare ← beccus
Spanish pinchar ← picar

Pronunciation

  • /piˈkante/, [piˈkãn̪.t̪e][1]

Forms

picante m or f (masculine and feminine plural picantes)[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish picar + -nte, the old present participle of the verb.[2][3][1] Corominas lists it among the derivatives of picar, a verb common to the western Romance languages and of expressive origin, recorded from the Cantar de mio Cid onwards.[4] Echegaray compares Italian piccante, French piquant and Catalan picant.[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

In Alonso López Pinciano's Philosofía antigua poética (1596) a speaker asks about raising laughter con palabra picante y mordaz “with a stinging and biting word”.[6] Two years later a medical book prescribes hortigas picantes, stinging nettles, for lethargy.[6] Corominas's first record is Mateo Alemán, 1599.[4]

Semantic evolution

The sense “hot, sharp to the taste” and the sense “biting, witty” were there from the start: Autoridades (1737) has the stinging thorns of a plant, the noun for the sharpness of pepper and onion, and motes picantes, witty taunts, used mostly as a noun.[7] Thieves' slang used picante for pepper as early as Hidalgo's glossary of 1609, and the Academy recorded it until the 20th century.[8][9][2] In 1884 the Academy added ideas or remarks somewhat free, the sense “risqué” that the word has today.[10]

In the Andes a picante is a dish seasoned heavily with chili: Arona in Peru (1883) describes picantes and the picanterías that serve them, and the word is used in Bolivia, Chile and Mexico for a hot sauce or stew.[11][12][13] In Chile it is also a disparaging word for a coarse or lower-class person.[14]

Timeline

  • 1596 – palabra picante y mordaz in López Pinciano.[6]
  • 1598 – hortigas picantes “stinging nettles” in Jerónimo Soriano's medical book.[6]
  • 1599 – Mateo Alemán, Corominas's first record.[4]
  • 1609 – picante “pepper” in the thieves' slang glossary of Hidalgo.[8]
  • 1625 – the first record from the Americas, of a drink that is like a picante once boiled.[15]
  • 1737 – Autoridades defines the adjective and the noun.[7]
  • 1883 – Arona describes the Peruvian picantes.[11]
  • 1884 – the Academy adds the sense “somewhat free, risqué”.[10]

Meanings

Adjective

  1. That stings or burns; of food, hot, spicy, piquant: Esta salsa es demasiado picante para mí.[2][1]
  2. Biting or somewhat obscene in a way that is amusing.[2][1]
  3. Expressing rather free ideas; risqué.[2][1]

Noun

  1. The sharpness of some foods that stimulates the sense of taste; spiciness.[2][1]
  2. Sharpness or sarcasm in speech.[2]
  3. (Bolivia, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Venezuela) A sauce or stew seasoned with hot chili.[2][14]
  4. (Mexico) The hot fruit of the chili.[2]
  5. (thieves' slang) Pepper.[2]

Word family

  • picantería
  • rábano picante
  • picar
  • picazón
  • Italian piccante
  • French piquant

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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. picante
  3. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. picante
  4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 518
  5. ^ Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 806
  6. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. picante
  7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 257
  8. ^ a b 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. 192
  9. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 670
  10. ^ 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. 825
  11. ^ a b Arona, Juan de [Pedro Paz Soldán y Unanue] (1883), Diccionario de peruanismos, Lima: J. Francisco Solís, p. 398
  12. ^ Bayo, Ciro (1910), Vocabulario criollo-español sud-americano, Madrid: Hernando, p. 178
  13. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 650
  14. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. picante
  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. picante
Cite this entry

“Picante.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/picante. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·