pilar

Forms

pilar m (plural pilares)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *pīlāre (“pillar”), formed on Latin pīla (“pillar, column”).^[2][3][1][4] The Academy's dictionary derives it from pila in the sense “heap”.^[5]

Corominas notes that Castilian, Catalan, Occitan and French inherited the Vulgar Latin word.^[2] The Germanic and Celtic languages borrowed it very early.^[2] It is Catalan pilar and French pilier, which replaced the suffix of piler.^[6][7] García de Diego gives the western form Old Galician-Portuguese piar.^[4] According to Houaiss, Spanish is the source of Portuguese pilar, and he records the spelling ⟨piares⟩ in the 13th century.^[8]

The Latin noun has no certain etymology.^[9][2] De Vaan compares only an Oscan verb meaning “to erect a stele”, and Corominas judges it probably unrelated to the homonymous noun for “mortar”, the source of the Spanish word for “basin”.^[9][2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is in La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy): Apparecio Dios a un pilar de una nuf “God appeared in a pillar of cloud”.^[10] The DCECH dates the word to 1251, in the Calila e Dimna, which the CDH reads in a copy of the late 14th or early 15th century.^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose used pilar for a pillar or column of a building and, figuratively, for a person who supports something: the four evangelists are the pilares of the Church.^[11] The figurative sense of a supporter has been in use since then: a text from the Río de la Plata of 1545 calls someone a pilar y firme defensor de nuestra santa fe.^[12] Nebrija gave Latin pila for a pilar that holds something up.^[13]

The Autoridades gave first the sense of a large stone basin at a fountain, then the column and the figurative supporter.^[14] The Academy added the sense of a road marker or milestone by 1817.^[15] From 1843 it described the architectural pillar as a kind of pilaster without a fixed ratio of thickness to height.^[16] Covarrubias recorded the Pilar de Zaragoza, the shrine where the Virgin was said to have appeared to the apostle James.^[17] The women's name Pilar comes from it, as a short form of María del Pilar.^[18]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – first record, in La fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[10]
• 1251 – the Calila e Dimna, the DCECH's first record.^[2][3]
• 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España calls the evangelists pilares of the Church.^[11]
• 1531 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico City: pilares de piedra.^[12]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the shrine of the Pilar de Zaragoza.^[17]
• 1737 – the Autoridades records the column and the figurative supporter.^[14]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds the sense of a road marker.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from pila.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pillar: a structural support with a polygonal or circular cross-section.^[5][1]
2. A marker (hito) or boundary stone (mojón) set up to mark roads.^[5]
3. A person who serves as a protector or support: Su madre fue el pilar de toda la familia.^[5]
4. Something that holds up or supports something else; a mainstay.^[5][1]
5. (rugby) A prop, one of the front-row forwards beside the hooker.^[1]

Word family

• Pilar
• pilarejo

Related words

• pila
• pilastra
• apilar

Usage notes

The phrase pilar del velo del paladar names each of the muscular folds joining the soft palate to the walls of the throat.^[5] The Academy's dictionary has two other words spelled pilar, both from pila “basin, trough”: a verb meaning to husk grain by pounding it in a mortar, and a noun meaning a stone basin at a fountain or a drinking trough.^[5] Corominas dates the noun to 1604, in the Guzmán de Alfarache, and the verb to the Academy's dictionary of 1925.^[2] The verb is used in the Caribbean and Central America of husking coffee or rice in a mortar.^[20][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 542
3. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pila
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5027
5. ^ a b c d e f g 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. pilar
6. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. pilar
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. pilier
8. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. pilar
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 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. pilar
11. ^ 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. pilar
12. ^ 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. pilar
13. ^ Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. pilar
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 271
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 675
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 563
17. ^ 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. 1214
18. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 548
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. 831
20. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. pilar
21. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. pilar