pichón

Forms

pichón m (plural pichones, feminine pichona, feminine plural pichonas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian piccione, a southern Italian form that has since spread to the whole of Italy with the sense “pigeon”.^[2][3][4] The Italian word goes back to Late Latin pipio (“young pigeon, squab”), a derivative of the verb pīpiō (“to chirp”).^[2][3][1] The verb is imitative of a bird's cry.^[5][1]

Corominas explains the Spanish form from the Italian of the south: Spaniards would have learned the word in southern Italy in the 16th century, and the change of Latin -pi- to the sound written ⟨cci⟩ is regular only there, in Liguria and in parts of Piedmont.^[2] The old Tuscan form was pippione, recorded from the 14th century.^[2][6] Meyer-Lübke had taken both the Spanish and the Italian word from Occitan;^[2][7] Corominas rejects this, because that word is itself taken from French pigeon, and the French sound /ʒ/ could explain neither the Spanish ⟨ch⟩ nor the Italian ⟨cci⟩.^[2][7] García de Diego and Segura Munguía, following the Academy's older etymology, derive the Spanish word through French instead.^[8][9] The French word goes back to a variant of the same Late Latin noun.^[10][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a text of 1604 by Fray Nicolás Bravo, quoted in the Diccionario de Autoridades, in the sense “young of the pigeon”.^[2][3] The word is absent from the medieval sources, from Alfonso de Palencia and Nebrija, and still from Percyvall (1591); in 1570 Cristóbal de las Casas rendered Italian piccione by palomino, the old native word.^[2]

Semantic evolution

After 1604 the word appears in Góngora (1610), Cervantes (1615), Covarrubias, Oudin and Huerta (c. 1625).^[2] The Academy's 1899 dictionary added the affectionate use as a name for men, beside the sense “young of the domestic pigeon”; the feminine pichona entered its dictionary in the 19th century.^[11][2] Today the affectionate term is applied to anyone.^[4][12]

In the Americas the sense widened to the young of any bird except the hen, whose young is the pollo: pichón de canario, pichón de gaviota in Cuba, and in Argentina even the young of some mammals.^[2][13] From the young bird came the senses “beginner, inexperienced person” and, in Mexico, “easy loser at gambling”.^[14][15]

Timeline

• 1604 – first record, in Fray Nicolás Bravo.^[2][3]
• 1610–1615 – used by Góngora and Cervantes.^[2]
• 1639 – first record from the Americas, in Peru.^[16]
• 1816 – in Mexico, inexperienced gamblers are called pichones.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin pipio.^[17]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the affectionate use for men.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A young pigeon, the chick of the domestic pigeon; squab.^[4][1]
2. (colloquial, affectionate) A term of endearment for a person, darling: Duerme bien, pichón.^[4][12]
3. (Latin America) The young of any bird.^[15]
4. (Latin America, colloquial) A young, inexperienced person, a novice.^[15][14]

Word family

• pichona

Related words

• palomino
• Italian piccione
• French pigeon

Usage notes

Tiro de pichón is pigeon shooting.^[4][18] In Venezuela echarle pichón a algo means to set about a task with resolve.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 529
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pichón
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. pichón
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. piccione
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. pipio
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. pipio
9. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 569
10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. pigeon
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 776
12. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pichón
13. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 653
14. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 467
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. pichón
16. ^ 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. pichón
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 827
18. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. pichón