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pompa

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word pompa

pompa1 pomp

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1301 a document of Burgos cathedral
Borrowed from
Latin pompa
Ultimate origin
Ancient Greek πέμπω
Etymology tree of pompa1
inherited borrowed derived
Latin pompa
English pomp
Spanish pompa

Pronunciation

  • /ˈpompa/, [ˈpõm.pa][1]

Forms

pompa f (plural pompas)[1] Medieval texts often spell it ponpa.[2]

Etymology

The word for pomp is borrowed from Latin pompa (“procession, retinue; pageantry”), which is from Ancient Greek πομπή (pompḗ, “sending; escort; procession”), a noun of πέμπω (pémpō, “to send”).[3][4][5][1] Latin had already taken the Greek word in Plautus's time.[6][7] Corominas notes that Alonso de Palencia also used pomposo and the adverb pomposamente, which may show that the noun was already in ordinary use in the 15th century.[3]

The same Latin word gave Catalan pompa, Portuguese pompa, French pompe and Italian pompa.[8][9][10][1] Beekes finds no Indo-European etymology for the Greek verb, nor any sign that it was borrowed.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEMel's first record is a document of Burgos cathedral of 1301.[12] Pedro de Cuéllar's Catecismo (1325, known from a copy of 1472) counts ponpa grand “great pomp” among the offshoots of pride, beside vainglory and hypocrisy.[2] The CDH's first record without a later copy is Pedro de Veragüe's Doctrina de la discreción (c. 1350), where all worldly ponpas are called mud.[2] Corominas and the Breve diccionario date the word from the Corbacho of 1438.[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The Latin sense “procession” stayed beside the senses of display and splendour: Fernández de Heredia (1376–1396) writes of Helen being taken away con muyt grant ponpa et honrra “with very great pomp and honour”, and of the pompas of a Roman triumph.[2] In Church Latin the plural meant the false show of the world and the devil, renounced at baptism.[13] Autoridades quotes a preacher for whom the pompas del diablo were the pomps of the world: ambition, pride and vanity.[14]

Corominas found the word in Cristóbal de las Casas (1570), Percyvall, Oudin and Covarrubias, and in the Quijote.[3] From 1600 it appears in the poems of Góngora, who was especially fond of it.[3] Covarrubias defined it as a sumptuous and showy retinue, whether joyful or sad, and took it from the Greek verb for “send”.[15] The Academy has kept that definition, with “solemn procession”, “vain pomp” and the spread tail of a peacock, from Autoridades to the present DLE.[14][16][5] In the phrase hacer pompa a tree spreads its foliage on every side, and a person makes a vain show of something.[5][17]

Timeline

  • 1301 – DEMel lists a record in the documents of Burgos cathedral.[12]
  • 1325 – Pedro de Cuéllar's Catecismo, in a copy of 1472, has ponpa grand.[2]
  • c. 1350 – Pedro de Veragüe's Doctrina de la discreción speaks of worldly ponpas.[2]
  • 1376–1396 – Juan Fernández de Heredia uses it often in his translations.[2][18]
  • 1438 – the Corbacho, Corominas's first record.[3][4]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin incedo for andar con pompa “to walk in state”.[19]
  • 1552 – first record from the Americas, in Guadalajara.[20]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias defines it and derives it from Greek.[15]
  • 1726–1739 – Autoridades calls it a purely Latin word.[14]
  • 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives its etymology, from Latin.[21]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A splendid retinue of many people, accompanying a festive or funeral ceremony: Enterraron al alcalde con toda pompa.[5][22]
  2. pomp, ostentation; vanity and grandeur.[5][1]
  3. A solemn procession.[5][1]
  4. The fan that a peacock makes by spreading and raising its tail.[5]

Word family

pompa2 bubble; pump

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1726–1739 Diccionario de Autoridades
Ultimate origin
Spanish bombarda
Etymology tree of pompa2
inherited borrowed derived
Spanish bomba
Spanish pompa

Pronunciation

  • /ˈpompa/, [ˈpõm.pa][1]

Forms

pompa f (plural pompas)[1]

Etymology

The word for the bubble is, according to the DLE, from Spanish bomba (“pump”).[5] Wiktionary also bases it on that word.[1] Corominas keeps it apart from the word for pomp and treats it under BOMBA: for him the usual Spanish form is a variant, with another consonant, of the same imitative base, which also gives Asturian pómpara.[23][3] He compares Catalan bombolla for the bubble, and for the pump French pompe, the English word pump and German Pumpe.[23]

He explains the word for the pump as related to Latin bombus (“buzzing”) and Ancient Greek βόμβος (bómbos), but as a new formation from the same imitation of a sound rather than a descendant of the Latin word.[23][24] Gómez de Silva thinks it may come from the word for pomp and is probably of the same family as the word for the pump.[25] Moliner, by contrast, derives all its senses from Latin pompa.[22]

Earliest recorded meaning

Autoridades is the first dictionary to give it, for the bubble that water forms when air gets into it and for the hollow that girls make with their skirts, catching air as they sit down.[14][23]

Semantic evolution

Terreros equated it with burbujica “little bubble” and recorded the ships' sense, the same as bomba “pump”; the Academy added the nautical sense in 1817.[26][16] The 19th-century editions also used hacer pompa of women puffing out their skirts and sitting down suddenly.[17] In Andalusia the phrase is said of a cloth or garment that puffs out.[27] Moliner gives the bubble first, especially pompa de jabón “soap bubble”.[22]

In Mexico the word, mostly in the plural, names the buttocks.[28][29][5] In the United States and Puerto Rico it means a pump for water or air, a use that Santamaría and Moreno-Fernández trace to the English word.[28][30][31]

Timeline

  • 1726–1739 – Autoridades records the bubble and the puffed-out skirt.[14]
  • 1786–1793 – Terreros gives the bubble and the ship's pump.[26]
  • 1817 – the Academy adds the nautical sense “pump”.[16]
  • 1942 – Santamaría records pompa “pump” in Texas, from English.[30]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A bubble formed when air gets into water or another liquid, as in pompa de jabón “soap bubble”.[5][22][1]
  2. A puff of air that swells out a piece of clothing.[5]
  3. (nautical) A pump for raising water; bomba.[5][1]
  4. (Mexico, colloquial) The buttocks, usually in the plural.[5][28][29]
  5. (United States, Puerto Rico) A pump for liquids or for inflating tyres.[28][31]

Word family

  • pompero
  • Latin pompa
  • Ancient Greek πομπή (pompḗ)
  • French pompe

Usage notes

Pompas fúnebres are the ceremonies of a funeral and, by extension, an undertaker's firm.[1][29] In the United States, Mexico and Puerto Rico the word for a pump is regarded as an anglicism; the standard word is bomba.[30][31][32]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. pompa
  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, 603
  4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pompa
  5. ^ 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. pompa
  6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
  7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
  8. ^ 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, 676
  9. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon
  10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  11. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  12. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
  13. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
  14. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 317
  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. 1221
  16. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 688
  17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 618
  18. ^ 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
  19. ^ 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. pompa
  20. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
  21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 848
  22. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
  23. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 619
  24. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bomba
  25. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
  26. ^ a b 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, 175
  27. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española
  28. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
  29. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial
  30. ^ a b c Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo
  31. ^ a b c Moreno-Fernández, Francisco (2018), Diccionario de anglicismos del español estadounidense (Informes del Observatorio 037-01/2018SP), Cambridge, Mass.: Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University
  32. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Pompa.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/pompa. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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