ría

Forms

ría f (plural rías)^[1]

Etymology

It is from Spanish río, with the feminine ending.^[2][3][4] Corominas calls it a new formation found only in Castilian and Galician-Portuguese, and notes that in Galician it can also mean a pleasant, irrigated valley, even far inland in Pontevedra.^[5] Wiktionary instead takes it as a borrowing from Galician ría, a doublet of the Spanish word for “river”.^[1]

The base word continues Latin rīvus (“brook, channel”), first recorded in a Spanish charter of 912.^[5][3] Only the Ibero-Romance languages and some Gascon dialects widened the Latin word to the sense of a large river.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nebrija's Vocabulario, about 1495, defines it as a river harbour, Latin ostium fluminis “river mouth”.^[5][3]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th-century chronicles of the Americas it is an arm of the sea that runs inland: an expedition sailed up the ría to look for a chief in Veragua (1539), and a channel of salt water linked the sea with a bay at Santo Domingo (1551).^[6] The Academy's dictionary of 1869 defined it as the lower part of a river near the sea, as far as the tides reach and fresh water mixes with salt.^[7] The modern definition is geological: the sea's entry into a coast where the lower part of a river valley has sunk.^[2] In sport the word now also names the water jump of steeplechase and show-jumping courses.^[2][8]

Timeline

• c. 1385 – DEMel lists the word in the glossary of López de Ayala's Rimado de palacio.^[9]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija defines it as a river harbour.^[5][3]
• 1539 – the first record from the Americas, in New Granada.^[6]
• 1869 – the Academy defines it as the tidal part of a river near the sea.^[7]

Meanings

Noun

1. A ria, a drowned river valley: an inlet of the sea formed where the coastal part of a river basin has sunk: Los barcos de pesca fondean en la ría.^[2][10]
2. A wide inlet into which deep waters flow to the sea; an estuary.^[2][1]
3. (sports) A water jump placed behind a fence in some races and riding competitions.^[2][8]

Related words

• riacho
• riachuelo
• riada
• Latin rīvus
• Galician ría

Usage notes

Ría is also a form of the verb reír (que no se ría “let him not laugh”), and most of the early hits in the CDH are this verb form.^[11]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. ría
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. río
4. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 613
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 27
6. ^ a b 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. ría
7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 683
8. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ría
9. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. ría
10. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. ría
11. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. ría