pinto

Forms

pinto (feminine pinta, masculine plural pintos, feminine plural pintas)^[1]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Vulgar Latin *pinctus (“painted”), the participle that Vulgar Latin formed for the verb pingō (“to paint”), in place of the classical participle pictus.^[2][1][3] The ⟨n⟩ was taken from the present stem of that verb.^[4] The same Vulgar Latin participle gave the verb pintar, and for a long time the adjective served as the participle of that verb; later it remained only as an adjective meaning the same as pintado.^[3][5]

It lives on in Asturian pintu and in Aragonese (at Caspe), and as Catalan pint.^[3][6] The place name and surname Pinto come from the same adjective.^[3] The Latin verb goes back to Proto-Italic *ping-e/o- (“to paint”) and Proto-Indo-European *pi-n-ḱ- (“to paint, adorn”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the prose of Alfonso X the word already describes a person whose skin has marks or spots: the Lapidario (1250–1279) says of a stone that rubbing it on the face of the omne pinto removes aquellas sennales, “those marks”.^[8][9] The BDELC dates the adjective only from the middle of the 15th century, when Alfonso de Madrigal (el Tostado) wrote los lagartos son pintos o manchados “lizards are spotted or blotched”.^[5][3][10]

Semantic evolution

In Spain the adjective went out of use: Autoridades marks it as antiquated, a synonym of pintado, and the Academy kept the label ant. through the 19th century.^[10][11][12] The DLE still labels it disused.^[2] It survived in fixed names such as pájaro pinto and in the old phrase pinto y parado, which was contracted into pintiparado by 1535.^[13][3][5]

In the Americas it stayed alive for the coats of animals: a Mexican document of 1718 describes a cow pinta de pardo y blanco “spotted brown and white”.^[14] In Cuba, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico and Venezuela it means black and white, and in Colombia, Chile, Peru and Puerto Rico it describes a reddish-gold cockerel with whitish spots.^[15][16] Cuban Spanish uses it for a shrewd, sly person, and Venezuelan for a drunk.^[15][17][1] As a noun it names the Mexican skin disease mal del pinto, the pinto bean of northern Mexico, and in Costa Rica a dish of rice and beans.^[18][19][2]

English took the word from American Spanish: pinto for a piebald horse is recorded in 1860, and pinto bean in 1916.^[20][21]

Timeline

• 1222 – the form Pinto, with a capital, appears in a Castilian document listed by the DEMel.^[22]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of the omne pinto, the spotted man.^[8]
• mid-15th century – el Tostado writes that lizards are pintos o manchados.^[3][5]
• 1535 – pintiparado, the contraction of pinto y parado, is recorded.^[5]
• 1714 – first record in the Americas, in Nuevo León (maíz del pinto).^[14]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades calls the adjective antiquated.^[10]
• 1860 – the English word pinto for a piebald horse is first recorded.^[20]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin pictus.^[12]
• 1917 – Alemany records the Cuban senses “shrewd” and “black-and-white cockerel”.^[16]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (dated in Spain, Latin America) Of an animal or a thing: of several colours, spotted, mottled: Tenía una vaca pinta y dos bueyes.^[2][1]
2. (Latin America) Of an animal: black and white; of a cockerel or hen, reddish-gold with whitish spots.^[15]
3. (Cuba) Shrewd, sly.^[15][17]
4. (Venezuela) Drunk.^[15][1]
5. (Colombia) Of a man: good-looking; of a person: smartly dressed.^[19]

Noun

1. (Mexico) The skin disease carate, mal del pinto.^[2][19][18]
2. (Mexico) A pinto bean.^[18][21]
3. (Costa Rica) A dish of rice and beans mixed with other ingredients, usually eaten at breakfast.^[19]

Word family

• pintiparado

Related words

• pintar
• pintor
• pintura
• pinta
• pintado
• Latin pictus

Usage notes

The phrase estar entre Pinto y Valdemoro “to be undecided”, and colloquially “to be half drunk”, uses the name of the town of Pinto near Madrid.^[2][23]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. pinto
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 558
4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5011
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pintar
6. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. pint
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ 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. pinto
9. ^ Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 277
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 565
12. ^ 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. 833
13. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 141
14. ^ 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. pinto
15. ^ a b c d e Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 660
16. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1322
17. ^ a b Pichardo, Esteban (1875), Diccionario provincial casi-razonado de vozes y frases cubanas, 4th ed., La Habana: Imprenta El Trabajo, p. 294
18. ^ a b c Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 480
19. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. pinto
20. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
21. ^ a b Cobos, Rubén (1983), A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, p. 154
22. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. pinto
23. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pinto