plata

Forms

plata f (plural platas)^[1] Autoridades notes that the word was once prata, quoting the Fuero Juzgo: fueras el oro o la prata que non pudo arder “except the gold or the silver, which could not burn”.^[2][3] Terreros adds that prata was still used in Galicia.^[4]

Etymology

It continues inherited from Vulgar Latin *platta (“metal plate”), the feminine of *plattus (“flat”), which was used as a noun in Late Latin from the 10th century for a sheet, usually of metal, and in the Iberian Peninsula came to name silver itself.^[5][6][1] The DLE starts the chain from plata (“sheet of metal; silver”).^[6] The Vulgar Latin adjective was borrowed from Ancient Greek πλατύς (platús, “wide, flat”), which goes back to Proto-Indo-European *pleth₂- (“flat”).^[7][1] Corominas explains the doubled ⟨tt⟩ of the Vulgar Latin word as an expressive doubling.^[7] The same adjective gave the popular chato, and its noun forms plato and this word show how old and common it was in Vulgar Latin.^[7] Wiktionary suggests that the word, like the one for “plate”, may be semi-learned or avoided the usual sound changes because it was used mainly by the upper classes.^[1]

It displaced Old Spanish ariento, from Latin argentum, whose name survives in the chemical symbol Ag.^[1][6] The same word is Portuguese prata (recorded from 1136), and Old Occitan plata meant a metal plate or a bar of silver.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in a charter of 1112 in the cartulary of Covarrubias.^[5][3][10] The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has Espeso é el oro e toda la plata “the gold and all the silver are spent”, and often counts in marcos de plata “marks of silver”; in several lines it means a silver coin.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Lapidario describes the metal as the stone that the Moors call feda and that bears the hammer and the furnace.^[13] Covarrubias in 1611 explains its name from a Greek verb meaning “to mould”, because silver yields to the hammer, and records plata quebrada, broken silverware that keeps the value of its weight.^[14] Autoridades records it as a heraldic metal and the phrase en plata “briefly, plainly”.^[2]

The sense “money”, now American, was used earlier in Spain, from the early 17th century and apparently already in the 14th and 15th.^[5] Salvá in 1846 marks it as an Americanism;^{[15][16][17][18]} Batres, Granada and Román answer that it is neither a Gallicism nor only American, and Román quotes the proverb Dios es el que sana, y el médico lleva la plata “God heals, and the doctor takes the money”.^{[15][16][17][18]} The DLE marks the sense “money, wealth” as American.^[6]

Timeline

• 1112 – first record, in a charter of the cartulary of Covarrubias.^[5][3]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses plata for the metal and for silver coin.^[11][12]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario describes the metal.^[13]
• 1438 – platero “silversmith”.^[5]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin argentum and Greek argyros.^[19]
• 1525 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City: marcos de plata.^[20]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records plata quebrada.^[14]
• early 1600s – the sense “money” is in use in Spain.^[5]
• 1748 – platina, the name of the metal platinum, from which French platine and Spanish platino (1817) come.^[5]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Late Latin plata “sheet of metal”.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. silver: the white, shining, very ductile and malleable metallic element of atomic number 47 (symbol Ag), used in coins, jewellery and photography.^[6][1]
2. A silver coin or coins: Le pagaron en plata.^[6]
3. A silver medal: Ganó la plata en los cien metros.^[6][22]
4. An object or objects made of silver; silverware: Los domingos sacaban la plata de la abuela.^[6]
5. A jewel that keeps its intrinsic value even if it loses its workmanship.^[6][21]
6. (figurative) Something that, without being a burden, is valuable and useful whenever it is used.^[6][21]
7. (Latin America) money, wealth: No me alcanza la plata para el alquiler.^[6][1]
8. (heraldry) argent, one of the two metals of the blazon, shown by the white field.^[6][1]

Adjective

1. Silvery, of the colour of silver; said of a bright white colour, also as a noun.^[6]

Word family

• platal
• platear
• plateado
• platero
• platería
• platilla
• platino

Related words

• plato
• chato
• Latin argentum
• Portuguese prata
• English plate

Usage notes

The adverbial phrase en plata means “briefly, plainly, without beating about the bush”.^[2][23] Other set phrases are bodas de plata “silver wedding” and the proverb a enemigo que huye, puente de plata.^[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 Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5
3. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. plata
4. ^ 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, 155
5. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. plata
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. plata
7. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 345
8. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. prata
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. plata
11. ^ 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. plata
12. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. s.v. plata
13. ^ 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. plata
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. 1218
15. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 854
16. ^ a b Batres Jáuregui, Antonio (1892), Vicios del lenguaje y provincialismos de Guatemala, Guatemala: Encuadernación y Tipografía Nacional, p. 459
17. ^ a b Granada, Daniel (1890), Vocabulario rioplatense razonado, 2nd ed., Montevideo: Imprenta Rural, p. 11
18. ^ a b Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 841
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 398
20. ^ 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. plata
21. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 839
22. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. plata
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 569