pulga

Forms

pulga f (plural pulgas, diminutive pulguita)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish pulga, inherited from Vulgar Latin *pūlica, a variant of Latin pūlex (“flea”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas notes that the Spanish form requires such a base, with the feminine ending, while most Romance languages continue the classical accusative of the noun.^[2] The feminine gender itself is not recorded in antiquity, but it must be very old, since it runs from Portuguese to French and Italian; only Romanian and Engadine keep the word masculine.^[2] He leaves open whether the variant already existed in Vulgar Latin or arose later under the influence of the verb pūlicō, found in Latin glosses, and of a derived verb meaning “to rid of fleas”, the source of espulgar.^[2]

Only Portuguese and some dialects of central northern Italy (Parma, Piacenza, Reggio, Pavia) share the form with ⟨g⟩: Portuguese pulga beside Catalan puça, French puce, Italian pulce and Romanian purice, and Upper Aragonese pulce.^[2][5][1] The Catalan word was earlier pulça, taken from the old plural.^[6]

The Latin noun has cognates across Indo-European, among them ψύλλα (psúlla) and flōh, all meaning “flea”, but de Vaan finds it impossible to reconstruct a single preform, since names of insects are often deformed by taboo and folk etymology.^[7] Wiktionary traces it to *plus- (“flea”), with the consonants reordered in Latin; de Vaan gives the same root with a question mark.^[1][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Calila e Dimna of 1251, which warns against suffering what happened to the louse for giving lodging to the flea: guárdate non te avenga por él lo que avino al piojo por ospedar a la pulga “take care that what befell the louse for lodging the flea does not befall you because of him”.^[2][8] The CDH notes that the surviving copies of the text date from the late 14th or early 15th century.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word has been in general use at all periods, in the glossaries of Toledo, in Alfonso de Palencia and in Nebrija.^[2] Proverbs grew up around it early: the Cifar (1300–1305) already has quien con perros se echa con pulgas se levanta “he who lies down with dogs gets up with fleas”.^[8] Covarrubias in 1611 recorded echarle la pulga detrás de la oreja “to say something to someone that leaves him uneasy” and malas pulgas for a man who stings and provokes everyone; he also derived the word from polvo “dust”, out of which fleas were thought to breed.^[9] Autoridades rejected that derivation in favour of the Latin word.^[10]

The Academy's 1869 dictionary records tener malas pulgas “to be touchy, quick to take offence”, hacer de una pulga un camello o un elefante “to blow up another's faults”, and the plural for the tiny spinning tops children played with.^[11] In Spain the word also names a small filled roll.^[4][1] In the Spanish of the United States pulga means a flea market, after English flea market, and in the Dominican Republic the plural pulgas names a street market.^[12][13] In Guatemala and El Salvador it is a euphemism for a prostitute.^[14] In Asturias it also names the black spot that marks the start of tooth decay in cattle.^[2]

Timeline

• 1251 – first record, in the Calila e Dimna.^[2][3][8]
• c. 1253 – the Sendebar uses the plural pulgas, in a copy of the early 15th century.^[8]
• 1276–1279 – Alfonso X's Libro de las formas y de las ymágines gives a recipe to drive away bedbugs and fleas.^[15][8]
• 1300–1305 – the Cifar records the proverb about lying down with dogs.^[8]
• 1335 – the derived verb espulgar “to delouse” is first recorded.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin pulex as its equivalent and records pulgón for a pest of vines.^[16][2][17]
• 1548 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo, where the chigoe is compared with the smallest flea.^[18]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records echar la pulga detrás de la oreja and malas pulgas.^[9]
• 1869 – the Academy's dictionary records tener malas pulgas.^[11]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, from Latin pulex.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. flea: a small, wingless, jumping insect that lives as a parasite on people and animals, sucking their blood: El perro volvió del campo lleno de pulgas.^[4][1]
2. A very small spinning top that children play with.^[4][11]
3. (Spain, colloquial) A small filled roll, a little sandwich.^[4][20][1]
4. (United States) A flea market.^[12][1]
5. (Guatemala, El Salvador, euphemistic) A prostitute.^[14]

Word family

• pulgón
• pulguera
• espulgar
• pulgoso
• pulguiento

Related words

• Latin pūlex
• Portuguese pulga

Usage notes

Tener malas pulgas means to be bad-tempered, and la pulga detrás de la oreja is something that keeps a person uneasy.^[4][20] Pulga de agua or pulga acuática is the water flea, a tiny crustacean of stagnant water that moves in jumps.^[4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 685
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pulga
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. pulga
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ 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, 848
7. ^ 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
8. ^ 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. pulga
9. ^ 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. 1236
10. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 428
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 643
12. ^ a b Moreno-Fernández, Francisco (2018), Diccionario de anglicismos del español estadounidense (Informes del Observatorio 037-01/2018SP), Cambridge, Mass.: Instituto Cervantes at Harvard University, p. 80
13. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. pulga
14. ^ 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. pulga
15. ^ 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. pulga
16. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
17. ^ 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. pulga
18. ^ 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. pulga
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 878
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pulga