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piojo

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word piojo

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
c. 1200 Almerich, La fazienda de Ultra Mar, in a 13th-century copy More words from the 12th century
Inherited from
Latin peduculus
Ultimate origin
Latin pedis

Pronunciation

  • /ˈpjoxo/, [ˈpjo.xo], /piˈoxo/[1]

Forms

piojo m (plural piojos)[1] Old Spanish wrote pioio.[2][3] A popular form piejo is heard in the province of Salamanca and in Almería.[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin pedūculus (“louse”), the Vulgar Latin form of classical Latin pēdīculus, a diminutive of pēdis (“louse”), through Old Spanish pioio.[4][5][6][1] Wiktionary has the Late Latin form peduclus in between.[1] The learned pedículo continues the classical diminutive.[1]

The same Latin word is Portuguese piolho, Catalan poll, French pou and Italian pidocchio;[1][7][8] The Asturian form is pioyu.[4][1][7][8] Coromines traces the Catalan word through older stages still visible in Llull.[9]

For the dialect form piejo, Corominas rejects survival of the classical form, which no Romance language has kept, and prefers the influence of the suffix -ejo or a dissimilation in piojoso > piejoso.[4] García de Diego, on the contrary, files the dialect form under the classical word.[10]

The Latin noun for the louse goes back to Proto-Italic *pezd- and Proto-Indo-European *pesd- (“annoying insect”).[11][12][1] De Vaan compares an Avestan word for a beetle or maggot, and suggests that the noun was remade from an older *pēdex.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) has the plague of Egypt, La plaga de los pioios “the plague of lice”.[13][2] Alfonso X's Lapidario has a stone whose powder kills lice and cleans the head.[3]

Semantic evolution

Corominas's first record is the Calila e Dimna (1251), with the fable of the louse that took in the flea.[4][13] In books on falconry the word also named the lice of birds and the disease they cause in hawks.[3][14]

Covarrubias (1611) records piojoso for a mean and wretched man, como piojo en costura for a meddler, and comerse de piojos “to be eaten by lice”, to be in great want.[15] Autoridades has piojo pegadizo, a louse caught from someone else, and figuratively an importunate person one cannot get rid of; the DLE still has it.[14][6] Later the Academy added piojo de mar, a crustacean that lives on whales.[16][6]

In the Americas the word names a very short person (Nicaragua, Panama, Puerto Rico, Bolivia, Argentina) and a child (Panama, Dominican Republic).[17][18][19] In Argentina the proverb about the piojo resucitado mocks upstarts who despise the poor.[20]

Timeline

  • c. 1200 – first record, pioios, in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar.[13][2]
  • 1250 – the Moamín warns that some food breeds lice in hawks.[13]
  • 1251 – the Calila e Dimna: Corominas's first record.[4][5]
  • 1490 – Alonso de Palencia has piojoso and piojento.[4][5]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin pediculus and records despiojar.[21][5]
  • 1571 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.[22]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias records como piojo en costura.[15]
  • 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology, from Latin pediculus.[23]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A louse: a small wingless insect that lives as a parasite on people and other animals and feeds on their blood: En el campamento varios niños cogieron piojos.[6][1]
  2. A bird louse (piojillo).[6]
  3. (mining) A chip that flies off the head of a drill under the hammer and stings the worker's hands.[6]
  4. (Latin America, colloquial) A very short person;[17][18] (Panama, Dominican Republic) a child.[17][18]

Word family

  • despiojar
  • piojoso
  • piojento
  • piojillo
  • pedículo
  • Portuguese piolho

Usage notes

Piojo de mar is the whale louse.[6] The phrase como piojos en costura means packed tightly together.[24][25] The rhyme ojo, piojo is a jocular way of saying ojo “watch out”.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. piojo
  3. ^ a b c 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. piojo
  4. ^ 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, 560
  5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. piojo
  6. ^ 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. piojo
  7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4900
  8. ^ a b Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. pioyu
  9. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 6, 653
  10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 4899
  11. ^ 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
  12. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. pedis
  13. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. piojo
  14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 280
  15. ^ 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. 1215
  16. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 566
  17. ^ 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. piojo
  18. ^ a b c 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. piojo
  19. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. piojo 1
  20. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 386
  21. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 397
  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. piojo
  23. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 834
  24. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. piojo
  25. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 678

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Piojo.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/piojo. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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