porcino

Forms

porcino (feminine porcina, masculine plural porcinos, feminine plural porcinas)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote porçino.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin porcīnus (“of a pig”),^[1][3] the adjective of porcus (“male pig”), formed with the suffix -īnus.^[4][5] Corominas lists it under puerco, the noun inherited from the same Latin word, and the Breve diccionario dates it only from the 17th century.^[6][7]

The Latin adjective is recorded from Naevius on.^[5] The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *pork-o- and Proto-Indo-European *pórḱ-o- (“digger, pig”), from a root meaning “to dig up”.^[5]

The Latin adjective also gave Catalan porcí, French porcin and Portuguese porcino.^[8][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

DEMel's first record is the feminine porcinas in an Old Spanish translation of the Books of the Maccabees, of about 1260, and the DHLE also dates the adjective “of the pig” from 1260.^[2][11] A document of the chapter of Segovia, from after 1296, has porçino.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Autoridades gave three uses: the adjective, a noun “little pig”, and a noun “bump on the head”, quoting a poem by the Maestro León.^[12][6] According to the DHLE the bump was first recorded by Palet's Spanish–French dictionary of 1604 and in a text in 1670, and it hardly outlived the 19th century outside dictionaries.^[11] It is still a word for a bump in the province of Jaén.^[13] The DHLE also has a sense “painful swelling of the lymph glands” from 1684, the pigs raised for trade from 1902, and the pig industry from 1983.^[11] Autoridades also recorded pan porcino, a cyclamen with a thick round root that pigs like.^[12] Leonese uses it of a small dirty person, a rascal, and the louse of pigs.^[14]

Timeline

• c. 1260 – porcinas in an Old Spanish translation of the Maccabees.^[2][11]
• 1537 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo, of ganado ovejuno e porcino “sheep and pigs”.^[15]
• 1604 – Palet's dictionary records the sense “bump on the head”.^[11]
• 1684 – the sense “swelling of the lymph glands” in a veterinary book.^[11]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades gives the adjective, “little pig” and “bump”.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from Latin porcinus.^[16]
• 1902 – first record of the sense “pigs raised for trade”.^[11]
• 1983 – first record of the sense “pig industry”.^[11]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of or relating to the pig; porcine: Visitamos una granja porcina.^[3][1][11]

Noun

1. A small pig, a piglet.^[3]
2. A bump on the head; chichón.^[3][13]
3. Pigs raised for trade; the pork industry.^[11][1][17]

Related words

• puerco
• porcuno
• Latin porcus

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
3. ^ 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. porcino
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 675
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. puerco
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva
11. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. porcino
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 325
13. ^ a b Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española
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
15. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 850
17. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial