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puño

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word puño

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1064 Fuero de Jaca More words from the 11th century
Inherited from
Latin pugnus
Ultimate origin
Latin pugnus
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin pūgnus
French poing
Italian pugno
Spanish puño
From the same root
Latin pugil ← pūgnus
Latin pugnō ← pūgnus

Pronunciation

  • /ˈpuɲo/, [ˈpu.ɲo][1]

Forms

puño m (plural puños)[1] Old Spanish wrote punno, also puno, punio and pugno.[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin pugnus (“fist”).[3][4][5][1] Old Spanish wrote it punno, with ⟨nn⟩ for the palatal nasal /ɲ/ that Latin /ɡn/ became.[1][2] The DCECH notes that it has been in general use at every period and is common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese punho, Galician puño, Asturian puñu, Catalan puny, Occitan ponh, French poing, Italian pugno and Romanian pumn.[3][6][7][1]

Wiktionary traces the Latin word to Proto-Italic *pugnos and Proto-Indo-European *puǵnos, from *pewǵ- (“to prick, punch”), with Ancient Greek πυγμή (pugmḗ, “fist”) as a near cognate and Latin pungō (“to prick”) as a relative.[1][8] The DHLE instead derives the Latin word from the Greek one.[9] The Latin verb pugnō (“to fight”), formed from the noun, survived in a popular form as puñar “to strive” and was later borrowed as pugnar.[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH and the BDELC date the word from the Fuero de Jaca of 1064.[3][4] The DHLE puts the first record in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1200, in a 14th-century manuscript), with Latin-Romance records before it, and there the sense is the cuff of a sleeve: al puño bien están “they fit well at the cuff”.[9][10] The earliest text without a later copy, the Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250), has the fist: con punno o con palma “with the fist or with the open hand”.[10]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish already used the word for the closed hand and for the cuff.[3][9] Corominas thinks the cuff sense comes from an old sense “wrist”, still found in northern Argentina and comparable to puny de la mà and French poignet.[3][4] The General Estoria (1272–1275) uses el punno lleno for a handful, and Nebrija gives both senses, the closed hand and what it holds.[11][12] The sense “corner of a sail” is recorded about 1573, and “a blow of the fist” appears first in the Quijote.[3] Corominas does not think it an Italianism, as it lives on in Judeo-Spanish and in Spanish America.[3]

The Academy's 1817 edition had the cuff of a shirt, the lace ornament at the wrist and the hilt of a sword, and the Diccionario de Autoridades already had un puño de casa for a cramped house.[13][14] Domínguez (1846) adds the plural puños “strength”.[15] Today the sense “punch” is dated in Spain but used in Mexico, the Caribbean and the Andes.[5][16]

Timeline

  • 1064 – the Fuero de Jaca, the DCECH's first record.[3][4]
  • c. 1200 – the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy) uses it for the cuff of a sleeve.[9][10]
  • 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita has con punno o con palma.[10]
  • 1272–1275 – the General Estoria uses el punno lleno for a handful.[11]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija gives puño o puñado as Latin pugillus.[12]
  • 1532 – first records from the Americas, in Mexico: puños de tierra.[17]
  • c. 1573 – first record of the nautical sense, a corner of a sail.[3]
  • 1605 – the Quijote uses it for a punch.[3]
  • 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds the cuff, the lace ornament and the sword hilt.[13]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A fist, the closed hand.[5][1]
  2. A handful: un puño de lentejas.[5][1]
  3. The cuff of a shirt or other garment, around the wrist.[5][1]
  4. An ornament of lace or fine cloth at the end of a sleeve.[5]
  5. The hilt of a sword or knife.[5][1]
  6. The handle of a walking stick or umbrella, and the fitting that covers it.[5][1]
  7. (colloquial) Something too small or cramped.[5][18]
  8. (nautical) Each corner of a sail.[5]
  9. (Latin America; dated in Spain) A punch.[5][16]
  10. (colloquial, in the plural) Strength, courage.[5][18]

Word family

  • puñado
  • puñada
  • puñal
  • puñalada
  • apuñalar
  • puñete
  • puñetazo
  • puñeta
  • empuñar
  • empuñadura
  • apuñar
  • puñar
  • pugnar
  • pugna
  • impugnar
  • repugnar
  • inexpugnable
  • Latin pugnus
  • Portuguese punho

Usage notes

De su puño y letra means “in one's own handwriting”.[19][1] Puño americano is a knuckle-duster, and a puño cerrado “with the fist” is dated.[5]

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 Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. puño
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 696
  4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. puño
  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. puño
  6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
  7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5258
  8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
  9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. puño
  10. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. puño
  11. ^ 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. puño
  12. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 402
  13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 718
  14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5
  15. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1442
  16. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. puño
  17. ^ 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. puño
  18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. puño
  19. ^ 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. 627

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Puño.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/pu%C3%B1o. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

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