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queso

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word queso

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
955 a Leonese charter, spelt kayso More words from the 10th century
Inherited from
Latin caseus via Old Spanish
Ultimate origin
Latin cāseus

Pronunciation

  • /ˈkeso/, [ˈke.so][1]

Forms

queso m (plural quesos)[1] The early charters spell it kayso (955), keso (1062) and queso;[2] Aragonese texts have cheso.[3][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish queso, inherited from Latin cāseus (“cheese”).[3][4][5][1] Lanchetas gives the stages ⟨caseum⟩, ⟨caseo⟩, ⟨caiso⟩, ⟨ceiso⟩, ⟨ceeso⟩ and ⟨queso⟩, and compares beso from basium.[6] The charter form of 955, kayso, still has the ⟨ai⟩ of one of these stages.[3]

The Latin word survives in Romanian, Italian, Sardinian, Rhaeto-Romance, Spanish and Portuguese: Romanian caș, Italian cacio, Sardinian casu, Portuguese queijo and Asturian quesu.[3][1][7] Gallo-Romance and Catalan replaced it with formaticus, and Spanish formaje is a borrowing from them, as its sounds show.[3]

The origin of the Latin word is unknown: it has often been traced to a root meaning “to boil, ferment”, but de Vaan finds no etymology without poorly founded assumptions and suggests it may be a loanword.[8] Wiktionary adds that a loan from a neighbouring Italic language, especially Sabine, has also been proposed.[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first records are kayso in a Leonese charter of 955 and queso (spelt with k) in a document of 980.[3][4] The DEMel adds cheso in a Fanlo charter before 1035 and keso in a Huesca charter of 1062.[2] The CDH's first hit is the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250), which allots a shepherd II sueldos pora queso “two sueldos for cheese”.[9] A complaint of 1225–1250 says that Monio Rabinaldiz leuo keso e mantega “Monio Rabinaldiz took cheese and butter”.[9]

Semantic evolution

The word is used in every period with its first meaning.[3] Covarrubias in 1611 records the proverb Tanto pan como queso and the phrase armar con queso, to lure someone with a trifle as one baits a mouse.[10] The Autoridades has dos de queso for something of little worth.[11] The Academy's 1817 dictionary records queso de yerba, curdled with cardoon flower, and the proverb algo es queso, pues se da por peso.[12] In 1884 it added queso de cerdo, a brawn of pig's head pressed into the shape of a cheese.[13]

Colloquially queso means a person's foot, a use Bénaben calls slang and Garzón recorded in Argentina in 1910.[5][14][15] In Mexico it names sweets shaped like a cheese, such as queso de tuna.[16] In Ecuador it is a person who stands in the middle of a group and gets in the way, and in Puerto Rico a bald head.[17] Several languages of the Americas and the Philippines borrowed the word, among them Quechua kisu, Aymara kisu, Paraguayan Guarani kesu and Tagalog keso.[1]

Timeline

  • 955 – kayso in a Leonese charter.[3]
  • 980 – queso in a document listed by Oelschläger.[3][4]
  • 1062 – keso in a Huesca charter.[2]
  • 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes.[9]
  • 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario mentions a stone used to curdle milk for cheese.[18]
  • 1490 – first record of quesadilla.[4]
  • 1512 – the first record from the Americas, Canary cheeses shipped to Puerto Rico.[19]
  • 1525 – first record of requesón.[4][3]
  • 1611 – Covarrubias records Tanto pan como queso.[10]
  • 1627 – first record of quesería;[12] quesero and quesera follow in 1737.[4]
  • 1817 – the Academy records algo es queso, pues se da por peso.[12]

Meanings

Noun

  1. cheese: food made by ripening the curd of milk, with its own character for each kind according to its origin or making.[5][1]
  2. (colloquial) A person's foot.[5][1]
  3. (Ecuador, colloquial) A person who stands in the middle of a group and hinders conversation.[5][17]
  4. (Venezuela, Panama, vulgar) Sexual desire.[1]
  5. (Puerto Rico) A bald head.[17][20]

Word family

  • quesada
  • quesero
  • quesillo
  • requesón
  • choriqueso
  • quesería
  • quesito
  • quesadilla
  • quesera
  • caseoso
  • caseína
  • Latin cāseus
  • Portuguese queijo

Usage notes

Dársela a alguien con queso is “to fool someone”;[21] Alcalá Venceslada records it in Andalusia.[21] Queso de bola is a round Dutch cheese with a red rind, and medio queso a tailor's half-round pressing board.[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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, p. s.v. queso
  3. ^ 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, 721
  4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. queso
  5. ^ a b c d e f 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. queso
  6. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. s.v. queso
  7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 1509
  8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
  9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. queso
  10. ^ 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. 1241
  11. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 467
  12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 721
  13. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 888
  14. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. queso
  15. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 413
  16. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 905
  17. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. queso
  18. ^ 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. queso
  19. ^ 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. queso
  20. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. queso
  21. ^ a b Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 516

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Queso.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/queso. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·