pocilga

Forms

pocilga f (plural pocilgas)^[1] Old Spanish had porcilga;^[2][3] Nebrija already writes pocilga in about 1495.^[2][3] Dialect forms include Navarrese porciga and polciga and Pyrenean pocilca.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish porcilga, inherited from Vulgar Latin *porcicula according to Corominas, a derivative of porcus (“pig”) whose formation is uncertain.^[2][3] He explains the Vulgar Latin form as a blend of Late Latin porcīle (“pigsty”) with its synonym corticula, a word the notaries used so much in their Latin that it kept its unstressed vowel; *porcigla then became the Old Spanish form by metathesis.^[2][3] He finds the blend confirmed by Roussillon forms such as cossigola, from Elna.^[2]

The DLE derives it instead from *porcilica, a derivative of the Late Latin word for “pigsty”, and García de Diego, the DCVB and Wiktionary also mention this base.^[5][4][6][1] Corominas finds it difficult on grounds of form and sound.^[2] The related words of the other languages are Portuguese pocilga, Catalan porcigola and Gascon pourcinglo.^[3][1] The Late Latin noun itself gave Italian porcile and Old French porcil.^[7]

The Latin word for “pig” goes back to *pórḱ-o-, which de Vaan takes to have meant “digger”, from the root that gave the word for “furrow”.^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is Alfonso de Palencia's Latin–Spanish dictionary of 1490, which explains Latin hara as porcilga de puercos “pigsty”.^[2][9] Nebrija's Spanish–Latin vocabulary of about 1495 has pocilga o çahurda de puerco, again for hara.^[2][10]

Semantic evolution

Pedro Vallés's collection of proverbs (1549) has Puerco sarnoso revuelve la pocilga “a mangy pig stirs up the sty”.^[9] In the 16th century the word was already applied to wretched lodgings: Saint Teresa reports a friar ready to live even in a pocilga, and a Toledo memorial of 1576 says a building looked more like a sty for animals than a house for men.^[9] Covarrubias explains the word as quasi porcilga, from porcus.^[11] The Diccionario de Autoridades records the figurative sense of any stinking, filthy place, which the DLE keeps as colloquial.^[12][5]

In Mexico City Molina's vocabulary of 1571 has pocilga o çahúrda de puercos.^[13] In Leonese the word also names the pig's feeding trough.^[14]

Timeline

• after 1296 – the DEMel lists pocilga in a document of the chapter of Segovia.^[15]
• 1350 – the HSMS lists the word in the manuscript of Alfonso XI's Libro de la montería.^[16]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's porcilga, Corominas's first record.^[2][3][9]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's pocilga.^[2][10]
• 1549 – Vallés's proverb of the mangy pig.^[9]
• 1571 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[13]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from porcus.^[11]
• 1737 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the figurative sense.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives an etymology, from Latin porcile.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A pigsty: a shed or pen where pigs are kept.^[5][1]
2. (colloquial) A filthy, foul-smelling place; a dump: Después de la fiesta, el salón quedó hecho una pocilga.^[5][1][18]

Related words

• puerco
• porqueriza
• porcino

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 675
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. puerco
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. *porcilica
5. ^ a b c d 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. pocilga
6. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. porcigola
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6661
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. pocilga
10. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 398
11. ^ 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. 1219
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 306
13. ^ 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. pocilga
14. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. pocilga
15. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. pocilga
16. ^ 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, p. s.v. pocilga
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 843
18. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. pocilga