ramadán

Forms

ramadán m (plural ramadanes)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Andalusian Arabic رمضان (ramaḍán), from Arabic رمضان (ramaḍān), the name of the ninth month of the Islamic year.^[2][3][4] Wikcionario derives the Arabic name from the root ر م ض (r-m-ḍ, “scorching heat”), and DICCA-XV says it was originally the name of a summer month in the old calendar.^[5][6] Bénaben and Gómez de Silva explain it the same way, as the month of heat or dryness, since it once fell in the hot season.^[7][8]

The same word is Portuguese ramadão and Catalan ramadan; through Algerian Arabic it also gave French ramdam “din, racket”, from the noise heard on the nights of the month after the day's fast.^[3][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Alfonso X's Estoria de España (c. 1270, in a late 13th-century manuscript), which says that Muhammad ordered the Muslims to fast for thirty days en el mes que los moros llaman Ramadan, “in the month the Moors call Ramadan”.^[9][10]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its single sense from the first record: the Islamic month of fasting.^[10][2] Rabí Zag's astrolabe treatise (c. 1277) lists it among the Arabic months, and López de Ayala (c. 1400) calls it la quaresma de los moros, the Lent of the Moors.^[9] An aljamiado legal treatise of about 1440–1460, written by Spanish Muslims, uses it for the month in which the Qur'an was sent down.^[9] The Academy's dictionary entered it in 1899, defining it as the ninth month of the Muslim lunar year, with thirty days of strict fasting.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1270 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España explains the fast of Ramadan.^[9][10]
• c. 1277 – Rabí Zag's Libros del astrolabio llano lists it among the months.^[9]
• c. 1400 – López de Ayala calls it the Lent of the Moors.^[9]
• 1880 – first record in the Americas, in Mexico.^[12]
• 1899 – first in the Academy's dictionary.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. Ramadan: the ninth month of the Muslim lunar year, during whose thirty days Muslims keep a strict fast from sunrise to sunset.^[2][4][1]

Related words

• Arabic رمضان (ramaḍān)

Usage notes

Older texts and many modern ones write the word with a capital, as the name of a month (el Ramadán); the DLE and Wiktionary enter it in lowercase.^[9][2][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. ramadán
3. ^ a b Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter
4. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ramadán
5. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
6. ^ 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. ramadán
7. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. ramadán
8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. ramadán
9. ^ 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. ramadán
10. ^ a b c 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. ramadán
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 840
12. ^ 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. ramadán