pie

Forms

pie m (plural pies)^[1] In the 13th century the normal plural is piedes, in Berceo, the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca, the Reyes de Oriente and the Apolonio;^[2] pies, secured by the metre in Juan Ruiz, is formed on the singular.^[2] Old Castilian also had piede (in the Fuero Juzgo) and pied, which is also Old Aragonese;^[3] piet is Pyrenean.^[3] Popular speech in parts of Latin America forms the plural pieses.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish pie, inherited from Latin pes (“foot”).^[2][6][7][1] The stressed short /e/ became the diphthong /je/ and the /d/ between vowels was lost, which gave the regular Old Spanish plural piedes.^[2][1]

The Latin word survives in all the western Romance languages: Portuguese pé, Galician pé, Asturian pie, Catalan peu, French pied and Italian piede.^[2][3][8][1]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *pets and Proto-Indo-European *pṓds, the source also of Ancient Greek πούς (poús) and of the English word foot.^[1][9] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *pōd- beside *ped-.^[9] As a unit of length for the English foot, the word is a semantic loan from English.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates it to the beginnings of the language, with the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy), and the BDELC gives about 1140.^[2][6] At a closed door the Cid sacó el pie del estribera, una ferida·l' dava “took his foot out of the stirrup and gave the door a kick”.^[10][11] The Cid already has de pie “on foot, without a horse” and en pie “upright”, and kissing the king's hands and feet as a greeting.^[11][2]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already uses the word for the base of a mountain, for the trunk of a tree and for a measure of length.^[12] Berceo said en piedes for “standing”.^[2] Nebrija in 1495 has pie de uvas pisadas, the mass of trodden grapes in the press, and pie as the common measure.^[2][13] Covarrubias in 1611 lists many phrases: hazer pie in the water, a pie enxuto “dry-shod”, entrar con pie derecho “to start with good luck” and nacer de pies “to be born lucky”.^[14]

Spain says ir a pie, but popular speech in Argentina and all South America says ir de a pie, a western Hispanic phrase that matches Galician ir da pé.^[2] Corominas does not know how old al pie de la letra is (it is in Autoridades), but does not think it a gallicism.^[2] In Bolivia, Chile and Argentina pie is the down payment on a purchase by instalments, and in Honduras and Panama a measure of timber.^[15][7] In Mexico the word was used for one shoe of a pair, and in Central America for a cutting taken from a plant.^[16][17]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses pie, de pie and en pie.^[2][11]
• c. 1194–1211 – the plural piedes in the Liber Regum (in a copy of the early 13th century).^[10]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it for the foot of a mountain.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records pie as a measure and pie de uvas pisadas.^[13][2]
• 1519 – the first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records nacer de pies and entrar con pie derecho.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology Del lat. pes.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. foot: the end part of each leg of the human body.^[7][1]
2. The corresponding part in animals.^[7]
3. A base or part on which something stands: el pie de la lámpara.^[7][1]
4. The stem of a plant or the trunk of a tree; a whole plant: tres pies de rosal.^[7]
5. sediment, dregs.^[7]
6. The part of a sock, stocking or boot that covers the foot.^[7]
7. (prosody) A metrical foot of two or more syllables in Greek and Latin verse.^[7][1]
8. The last player in the order of play, as against the first, called mano.^[7]
9. (theatre) The cue: the words that end one actor's speech before another speaks.^[7]
10. A unit of length, varying from country to country; the English foot of 30.48 cm.^[7][1]
11. The end of a piece of writing, or the blank space at the bottom of a page.^[7][1]
12. A caption under a press photograph.^[7]
13. The end opposite the head, as of a bed or a church; usually in the plural.^[7]
14. Occasion or reason for doing or saying something, as in dar pie.^[7]
15. (geometry) The point where a line drawn from a point meets a line or plane.^[7]
16. (zoology) The muscular organ of movement of molluscs.^[7]
17. (Bolivia, Chile, Argentina) A down payment.^[7][15]

Word family

• peaje
• peana
• peatón
• peón
• apearse
• traspié
• ciempiés
• antepié
• apoyapiés
• a pie juntillas
• al pie de la letra

Related words

• pedal
• pedestre
• podal
• podálico
• Latin pes
• Portuguese pé

Usage notes

In Central and South America pie (pronounced /ˈpai/, also spelt pay) is also a separate word, borrowed from English: a pie or tart.^[1] Wiktionary records it in Central and South America, and DAMER records a fruit pie in the United States, Cuba and Puerto Rico and a lemon or apple dessert in Honduras.^[1][15] The plural of the foot is pies;^[4][5] pieses is popular speech.^[4][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 530
3. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. pes
4. ^ a b c Cuervo, Rufino José (1914), Apuntaciones críticas sobre el lenguaje bogotano, 6th ed., París: A. & R. Roger y F. Chernoviz, p. 75
5. ^ a b c Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 382
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pie
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s 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. pie
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6439
9. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. pie
11. ^ a b c Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 388
12. ^ a b 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. pie
13. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 397
14. ^ 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. 1212
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. pie
16. ^ Ramos y Duarte, Félix (1895), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Imprenta de Eduardo Dublán, p. 403
17. ^ Membreño, Alberto (1897), Hondureñismos: vocabulario de los provincialismos de Honduras, 2nd ed., Tegucigalpa: Tipografía Nacional, p. 136
18. ^ 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. pie
19. ^ 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