rancho

Forms

rancho m (plural ranchos)^[1] Oviedo writes rrancho beside rancho.^[2]

Etymology

It is formed from Spanish rancharse (“to take up quarters”), a 16th-century soldiers' verb also found as ranchearse.^[3][4][5][1] The verb was taken from French se ranger (“to settle in a place; to put oneself in order”), derived from rang (“row, line”), which goes back to Frankish *hring (“circle of people”).^[3][4][1] Etymonline carries the chain back to Proto-Germanic *hringaz (“circle, ring”).^[6]

Corominas argues that the noun cannot come straight from French, which has no such noun, nor from arrancharse, a much later word made from the noun itself.^[3] He explains the /tʃ/ of the Spanish verb by the older military verb derranchar (“to break ranks”) of the Cid and the 13th-century chronicles, from Old French desrangier, whose affricate was heard as Spanish ⟨ch⟩.^[3] Because most Golden Age writers who use the word come from southern Spain, he also leaves open a native Mozarabic word of pre-Roman origin, noting a Menorcan ranxo (“gang of workers, small flock”), but he concludes that the French origin is the prudent view.^[3]

Older explanations, now rejected, derived it from Italian: Covarrubias from raunare (“to gather”), and the Academy's dictionaries of 1884 and 1899 from rancio (“soldiers' ordinary fare”).^[7][8][9] Corominas notes that the Italian word in that sense is itself a loan from Spanish.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Hernán Cortés's Cartas de relación (1519–1526) speak of the ranchos y aposentos “huts and lodgings” where the enemy troops were quartered at Guacachula.^[2] Corominas's first record is Fernández de Oviedo, about 1535, who uses it for the hut of a runaway Indian: salía de su rancho “he came out of his hut”.^[3][4] The sense at first was any place where people settled for a time, above all soldiers, sailors and people living outside a town.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th and 17th centuries the word was known wherever Spanish was spoken, for every kind of temporary dwelling of soldiers, Indians, sailors, fishermen, gypsies, shepherds and vagrants.^[3] Soldiers applied it to the huts of the American Indians, and in the Americas it became the name of the poor rural house; in Mexico it came to mean a middle-sized farm.^[3][5] Chroniclers in Mexico used it from 1532.^[10]

In soldiers' speech it also meant “room, space”, then the circle of soldiers who eat together (1737) and finally the soldiers' and sailors' meal itself (1761).^[4] Autoridades gives the circle of people eating together as the first sense, but Corominas calls it much later than the 16th century; the Academy had the sense “meal” by 1817.^[11][3] Only in this sense did it pass into Catalan ranxo and Italian rancio.^[3] In Andalusia it names a small farm, and in Aragon a shearing shed.^[3][12] Hidalgo's germanía vocabulary of 1609 glosses it “tent, or place where they gather”.^[13]

Across Latin America it means a poor house with a thatched roof, a shed, and in several countries a home in general.^[14] American Spanish rancho gave English ranch, first recorded in 1808.^[6]

Timeline

• 1519–1526 – Cortés's Cartas de relación use ranchos for soldiers' lodgings.^[2]
• 1532 – the word is recorded in Mexico.^[10]
• c. 1535 – Fernández de Oviedo, Corominas's first record, uses it for an Indian's hut.^[3][4]
• 1554 – López de Gómara uses it in his Historia general de las Indias.^[15]
• 1565 – first record of the derivative ranchería.^[4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as a military term for a company of comrades in a fixed spot in the camp.^[7]
• 1737 – the sense “circle of soldiers eating together”.^[4]
• 1761 – the sense “soldiers' and sailors' meal”.^[4]
• 1808 – English ranch, from American Spanish.^[6]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary puts the communal meal first and derives the word from Italian.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A meal cooked for many people at once, usually a single stew, such as the food given to soldiers or prisoners.^[5][16][1]
2. The group of people who eat such a meal together.^[5]
3. A place outside a town where several families or people lodge: un rancho de pastores.^[5]
4. A hut or poor house with a roof of branches or straw, outside a town.^[5][14]
5. (colloquial) A small group of people who keep apart from others to talk over some private matter.^[5][11]
6. (nautical) The place on board where the crew is quartered; each of the divisions of the crew of a warship; the provisions taken on board for those who eat together.^[5][1]
7. (Andalusia) A farm smaller than a cortijo, usually with a house.^[5]
8. (Latin America) A ranch where horses and other livestock are raised.^[5][1]

Word family

• ranchero
• ranchería
• ranchera
• rancherío
• arrancharse

Related words

• rango
• French rang
• English ranch

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. rancho
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 767
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rancho
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. rancho
6. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
7. ^ 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. 1246
8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 896
9. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 841
10. ^ 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. rancho
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 488
12. ^ Borao, Jerónimo (1908), Diccionario de voces aragonesas, 2nd ed., Zaragoza: Imprenta del Hospicio Provincial, p. 295
13. ^ Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 195
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. rancho
15. ^ Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. rancho
16. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rancho