puerta

Forms

puerta f (plural puertas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin porta (“gate, large door”).^[2][3][4][1] Classical Latin tended to keep that word for a city gate, calling the door of a house ostium or ianua, and the door of a room fores; the Romance languages gave up the distinction and kept the first word, and this is particularly true of the Iberian ones.^[2] Old Spanish kept a trace of the second in uço, and the third survives in place names and in Portuguese janela (“window”).^[2]

The same Latin word is Portuguese porta, Galician porta, Catalan porta, French porte, Italian porta and Romanian poartă.^[5][1] Spanish porta is a separate borrowing of the same word, taken several times: the Fuero Juzgo has it from Old Leonese, anatomy from Latin, the name of the Ottoman court from Italian, artillery from French.^[2] As a nautical and football term it comes from Catalan.^[2]

The Latin noun continues *portā (“gate, door”).^[6][1] Wiktionary takes it from *pr̥téh₂, the feminine of a past participle of *per- (“to pass through, over”); it is related to portus (“harbour”), the source of puerto.^[1][7] De Vaan compares the Germanic word for a ford, Old High German furt and Old English ford.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has it in the plural, beside the older uço: as the Cid leaves Vivar he „vio puertas abiertas e uços sin cañados” “saw gates standing open and doors without locks”.^[8][2] DEMel cites the plural puertas from the Fuero de Nájera, dated 1076, and puerta from a 12th-century Burgos document.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias (1611) took the word from portando “carrying”, because provisions are carried in through it, and held that its first meaning was the gate of a city or castle.^[10] He recorded the phrases andar de puerta en puerta “to go begging” and donde una puerta se cierra otra se abre “where one door closes another opens”.^[10] Autoridades distinguished the opening in a wall, any hole for going in and out, as of an animal's burrow, and the panel of wood, iron or bronze that closes it.^[11]

The Academy's 1884 edition recorded the plural puertas for the toll paid at a town's gates.^[12] Modern senses include the goal in football and the gate in alpine skiing; the sense “mountain pass” is now obsolete.^[4] In Fuerteventura and in Venezuela the word names a kind of ear-mark cut on goats or cattle.^[13][14]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has puertas beside uços.^[2][3][8]
• 1211 – the earliest record in the Old Spanish Textual Archive.^[15]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario speaks of a stone placed at the gate of a town.^[16]
• 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin ostium and foris as its equivalents; the derivatives portada and compuerta are first recorded.^[17][3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records andar de puerta en puerta and other phrases.^[10]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades defines the opening and the panel that closes it.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin porta.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A doorway: an opening in a wall or fence, from the ground up, for going in and out.^[4][1]
2. A door: the panel of wood, metal or other material, hung on hinges, that closes such an opening, or a cupboard: Cierra la puerta del armario.^[4][11]
3. Any opening for going in and out, as of a cave or a vehicle.^[4]
4. A town gate, once an opening in the city wall.^[4][10]
5. A triumphal arch built where an old town gate stood.^[4]
6. (sports) The goal in football and other games.^[4]
7. (figurative) A way in, means of access: El idioma fue su puerta a un nuevo trabajo.^[4]
8. (historical, usually plural) The toll paid on entering a town.^[4][12]
9. (skiing) A gate between two poles in an alpine course.^[4]
10. (obsolete) A mountain pass.^[4]

Word family

• portada
• portal
• portañuela
• portazo
• portero
• portería
• portezuela
• portillo
• aportillado
• portón
• compuerta
• soportal
• antepuerta

Related words

• portazgo
• puerto
• porta
• pórtico

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 681
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. puerta
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. puerta
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. porta
6. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. porta
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. puerta
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. puerta
9. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. puerta
10. ^ a b c d Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1235
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 424
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 877
13. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. puerta
14. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. puerta
15. ^ 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. puerta
16. ^ 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. puerta
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 402