rúa

Forms

rúa f (plural rúas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin ruga (“street”), from Latin rūga (“wrinkle, crease”).^[2][1] Corominas calls it the Old Castilian doublet of arruga “wrinkle”; the Latin word is recorded with the sense “street” in the eighth-century Liber Glossarum, and as Ancient Greek ῥοῦγα (rhoûga) in an inscription of the fourth century from Asia Minor.^[3] The DHLF describes the shift from “wrinkle” to “road, especially one lined with houses” as a metaphor of popular Latin.^[4]

Others see a borrowing from French rue.^[5][3] The REW derives the Spanish and Portuguese words from French, Corominas cites Aebischer's argument that the word for “street” in Italian, Castilian and Portuguese is a French loan, and he himself takes the uses of 1552 and of Cervantes as foreign.^[5][3] Nascentes says that Portuguese rua came through French, which explains the loss of the /g/, and Cunha allows for French influence.^[6][7]

Besides the Portuguese word and Galician rúa, the street word is Catalan rua (from 1181), Occitan rua and Italian ruga;^[8][1][3] the Basque word is arruga.^[8][1][3] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *roug-ā- and Proto-Indo-European *h₁roug-h₂- (“wrinkle”) for the Latin noun, most likely related to ērūgere (“to belch”).^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas gives as the first record a charter of 1129 from Carcastillo, in Navarre.^[3] The Libro de Apolonio (c. 1240, in a 14th-century copy) shows the sense “street”: pasaua Dionisa por la rúa, manyana “Dionisa went down the street in the morning”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word was common in the Middle Ages, in the Libro de Alexandre, Sem Tob and the Castigos of Sancho IV, and Alfonso X's General Estoria sets it beside calle.^[3][11] By the Golden Age it survived mainly in the phrase de rúa, used of clothes for going out and of horses for town;^[3] Don Quixote is taken out vestido de rúa.^[3] Records from the Americas, from 1570, are of the caballo de rúa.^[12] The verb ruar “to walk the streets” and the old noun ruano, a soldier who was not of noble birth, are derived from it, and perhaps ruana, a poor man's blanket and later a South American poncho.^[3][13]

Today the word is used mostly in the names of particular streets.^[14] In Galicia it also names a night-time village party, and hacer la rúa means to stroll, or to court a woman by walking past her house.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 1129 – first record, in a charter of Carcastillo.^[3]
• 1237 – a donation from Navarre speaks of las casas de la otra rua.^[10]
• c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio uses rúa for a town street.^[10]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General Estoria has ruua beside calles.^[11]
• 1570 – first record in the Americas, in Puebla, of a haca de rrúa.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A street of a town or village; now mostly in street names: Vivía en la rúa Nueva.^[2][14][1]
2. A cart road.^[2]
3. (Galicia) A night-time party or festivity of country people.^[2]

Word family

• ruar
• ruano

Related words

• arruga
• ruana
• Latin rūga
• French rue
• Portuguese rua

Usage notes

Hacer la rúa means the same as ruar, to stroll through the streets.^[2][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g 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. rúa
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. 1, 360
4. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. rue
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. rūga
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. rua
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2961
8. ^ a b 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. 7, 516
9. ^ 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. rūga
10. ^ 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. rúa
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. rúa
12. ^ 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. rúa
13. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ruana
14. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rúa