ponzoña

Forms

ponzoña f (plural ponzoñas)^[1] Old Spanish had pozón and poçón, later ponçon, poçonia, ponçonna, poçoña, pozoña and ponçoña.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish pozón, inherited from Latin pōtiō (“a drink, draught; a poisoned draught”), with its present form reshaped by the verb emponzoñar or ponzoñar “to poison”.^[3][4][5] Corominas derives that verb from Vulgar Latin *potioniāre, beside pōtiōnō (“to give a draught to”), which is recorded in Imperial Latin; the noun would then properly be a back-formation from the verb.^[3][5][6] He admits, though, that he has no record of the ⟨ñ⟩ in the verb earlier than in the noun.^[3] Wiktionary likewise derives it from the verb, from *pōntiōnāre, an altered form of the Latin verb, and gives as an alternative a Vulgar Latin noun *pōtiōnea.^[1] Corominas thinks that noun unlikely, because the ending is limited to Castilian and Portuguese and appears late.^[3] Meyer-Lübke explained the Old Spanish and Portuguese forms by a crossing with *punctiāre (“to prick”).^[7]

The ⟨n⟩ before the ⟨z⟩ spread from the other nasal of the word.^[3][4] Corominas notes that Castilian would expect a voiced ⟨z⟩ from the Latin /tj/ between vowels, while ⟨ç⟩ is regular in Portuguese and Leonese.^[3] The Latin noun is formed from the stem of pōtō (“to drink”).^[8][1] Cicero already used it of a poisoned drink.^[3]

The same Latin word is Portuguese peçonha, Galician pezoña, Catalan ponsonya, French poison and Old Occitan pozon.^[9][3][7] Spanish also borrowed it later as the learned poción.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso X's Lapidario (c. 1250) tells of stones that are poisonous because venomous animals rub against them and reciben dellas ponçon “take poison from them”.^[11][12] The Fuero Real (1251–1255, in a manuscript of 1255) lists giving herbs or poçón with evil intent among crimes.^[11] The Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250) has the plural poçones, but is known from a copy of the early 15th century.^[11][3]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant any poisonous drink: the Fueros de Aragón of about 1300 still use it as a feminine with an adjective, pozón enveninada “poisoned draught”, which suggests a general sense “draught”.^[3] The change to masculine and the spread of the nasal came early, as in the plural ponçones of the Poema de Fernán González.^[3] The figurative sense of a harmful doctrine is already in Alfonso X's Estoria de España, of heresy taught to the Goths.^[12] Corominas finds the modern form after Juan Ruiz in Alonso de Palencia and Nebrija, but the CDH has ponçoña in the Calila e Dimna (1251, in a later copy) and in the Castigos of 1293.^[3][11]

Autoridades reports Covarrubias's view that the word comes from Latin pungendo “piercing”, because poison pierces the heart like an arrow.^[13] Barcia rejected that explanation, and the Academy derived the word from poción in 1899.^[14][15] In Panama, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico and Colombia it is also the sting of insects and scorpions, in Puerto Rico the rump of a bird, and in Guatemala a grudge.^[16][17]

Timeline

• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre, in an early 15th-century copy, has poçones.^[11][3]
• c. 1250 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has ponçon.^[11]
• 1251–1255 – the Fuero Real has poçón.^[11]
• 1293 – the Castigos have ponçoña in a contemporary manuscript.^[11]
• c. 1300 – the Fueros de Aragón still use pozón as a feminine.^[3]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz has ponzoña, the Breve diccionario's first record (1335).^[3][4][18]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin venenum and virus for ponçoña.^[18]
• 1532 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico, of a poisoned arrow.^[19]
• 1899 – the Academy derives it from poción.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. poison, venom: a substance harmful to health or deadly.^[5][1][20]
2. (figurative) A doctrine, idea or practice that harms morals or society.^[5][20]
3. (Panama, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Colombia) The sting of an insect or scorpion.^[16][17]
4. (Puerto Rico) The rump of a bird, from which the tail feathers grow; rabadilla.^[16][17]
5. (Guatemala) rancour, a grudge.^[16]

Word family

• ponzoñoso
• emponzoñar

Related words

• poción
• Latin pōtiō
• Portuguese peçonha

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 610
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ponzoña
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. ponzoña
6. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6699
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 5186
10. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2014), Lexicón etimológico y semántico del latín y de las voces actuales que proceden de raíces latinas o griegas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 600
11. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. ponzoña
12. ^ 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. ponzoña
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 322
14. ^ Barcia, Roque (1880–1883), Primer diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Álvarez Hermanos
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía
16. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
17. ^ a b c Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr
18. ^ a b 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
19. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos