piel

Forms

piel f (plural pieles)^[1] Old Spanish had pielle beside piel; the Cid has the plural pielles beside pieles.^[2][3] The DEMel also records pel and pelle in medieval texts.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pellis (“skin, hide”), and Old Spanish had pielle beside piel.^[2][5][6][1] The Latin vowel was a short /e/.^[7] In the popular Latin of the Empire the word, first the skin of an animal, took the place of cutis, the word for human skin.^[8][9]

The same Latin word is Portuguese pele, Galician pel, Asturian piel, Aragonese piel, Catalan pell, Occitan pel, French peau, Italian pelle and Romanian piele.^[10][11][1] Old Castilian also had piell, the Catalan of Ribagorza has pali, and the Aranese forms are pech and pet.^[11] Corominas notes that the word has been in general use at every period and in every Romance language.^[2]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *pelni- and Proto-Indo-European *pel-ni- (“skin, hide”).^[12] De Vaan compares Lithuanian and Russian words for “membrane”, and Old High German fel and Old English fell (“skin”).^[12] Wiktionary adds Ancient Greek πέλμα (pélma, “sole of the foot”).^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is pielle in a charter of 939.^[2] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) uses the plural for furs: the hero sees his house stripped, alcándaras vazías, sin pielles e sin mantos “empty perches, without furs and without cloaks”.^[13][5] The first hit in the CDH in a text without a later copy is a will of the 13th century that leaves una piel “a fur” to a cousin.^[13]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used the word for the skin of the living body and for tanned hide: Alfonso X's General Estoria asks whether the Ethiopian can change la su piel, and the Fuero Juzgo speaks of pictures painted on hides.^[14] Nebrija gave it the Latin equivalent pellis, with pelleja as a synonym.^[15] Covarrubias recalled that before money existed people bartered skins, and that the first garment God made for Adam and Eve was of skins.^[16]

Autoridades defined it as the covering spread over the whole body of an animal, and also as a dressed hide such as chamois or sheepskin.^[17] The Academy added the peel of fruits such as plums and pears in 1843.^[18] Its earlier editions record the phrases dar la piel “to die” and ser de la piel del diablo “to be very naughty and unruly”.^[19] Domínguez in 1846 gives the figurative sense “life”, which lives on in phrases such as jugarse la piel.^[20][7]

In Mexico the word can mean a very beautiful woman, a little-used popular sense.^[21]

Timeline

• 939 – pielle in a charter.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has the plural pielles “furs”.^[13][5]
• 1220–1250 – the derivatives pelleja and pellejo are first recorded.^[5]
• 1280 – Alfonso X's General Estoria uses piel for the skin of a person.^[14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives piel o pelleja with Latin pellis.^[15]
• 1569 – first record in the Americas: pieles de nutrias “otter skins” in the Río de la Plata.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias writes on skins as the first money and the first garment.^[16]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the skin of fruits.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. skin: the outer tissue covering the body of vertebrates, made of the epidermis, the dermis and the hypodermis.^[6][1]
2. Tanned leather: unos guantes de piel.^[6]
3. fur: hide tanned with its hair left on, used for linings, trimmings and warm clothing: una chaqueta de piel de conejo.^[6][1]
4. The skin or peel of some fruits, such as plums and pears: Lava bien la piel de las manzanas.^[6][23]
5. (figurative) Life, in phrases such as jugarse la piel and dejarse la piel.^[7][23]
6. (Mexico, rare) A very beautiful woman.^[21]

Word family

• pelleja
• pellica
• pelliza
• pellón
• pielero
• pellejo
• despellejar
• sobrepelliz

Related words

• Latin pellis
• Portuguese pele
• Catalan pell

Usage notes

Set phrases include piel de gallina, the skin of a person roughened by cold or fear, piel roja, a Native North American, piel de ángel, a silk fabric like satin, and piel de cordero, a harmless look that hides other purposes.^[24][7][6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 537
3. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 388
4. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. piel
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. piel
6. ^ 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. piel
7. ^ a b c d Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 554
8. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. piel
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
11. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. pellis
12. ^ 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
13. ^ 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. piel
14. ^ 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. piel
15. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 397
16. ^ 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. 1213
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 267
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 562
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 674
20. ^ 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, 1377
21. ^ 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. piel
22. ^ 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. piel
23. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. piel
24. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. piel