rancio

Forms

rancio (feminine rancia, masculine plural rancios, feminine plural rancias)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin rancidus (“rotten, putrid”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas counts it among the words that every Romance language inherited.^[2] The same Latin word is Catalan ranci, Galician ranzo, Italian rancido and Romanian rânced, and the Portuguese noun ranço “rancidity” has the same source.^[5][6][7] The REW is more cautious: outside Romanian these forms may all be book words.^[6] French rance is a 14th-century borrowing from Latin according to the DHLF, and comes through Provençal according to the REW.^[8][6]

In Latin the adjective is formed from the rare verb ranceō (“to be rotten”), recorded once as a participle in Lucretius and in the glosses.^[9][8] De Vaan gives the verb no etymology.^[10] Its relative rancor (“rancidity; grudge”) gave Old Spanish rancor, later rencor, with the vowel of the prefix re-.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is Alfonso de Palencia's Latin–Spanish dictionary of 1490, which glosses Latin rancet as ya es rancio, ya es amargo “it is already rancid, already bitter”, the sense of food that has gone off with age.^[2][3] In the same years Nebrija used the word both as an adjective and as a noun, rancio “rancidity”, and the derivative rancioso was formed to take over the adjective.^[2][11]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 said it of bacon and other cured meats, and used rancioso for things improved by age, such as wine, and for the Christiano viejo rancioso, the Old Christian of long descent.^[12] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as food that changes its colour, smell and taste by long keeping, chiefly salted bacon, and gave a second sense, “old, ancient, long kept”, with a line of Quevedo calling a bride ráncia.^[13] Terreros noted that the rancid taste that is good in wine is bad in bacon.^[14]

The Academy's 1884 edition gave the etymology for the first time; that of 1899 extended the adjective figuratively to old things and to people attached to them (rancia estirpe, filósofo rancio), and added the noun sense “greasy dirt on cloth being worked”.^[15][16] Today it is praise in rancio abolengo “ancient lineage” and contempt for old-fashioned customs or people.^[4][17] Moliner and VOX also record it of people who are dour and unsociable.^[4][17][18]

In the Canary Islands of Las Palmas the noun means “grime, filth”, and in Ecuador Tobar noted that only spoiled food, never wine, is called rancio.^[19][20] In Chile it is said of a person who behaves foolishly or indecently.^[21]

Timeline

• 1490 – first record, in Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario.^[2][3]
• 1495 – Nebrija records enranciarse “to go rancid”.^[3]
• 1571 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City: rancio o rancioso.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records rancio of bacon and rancioso of old wine and Old Christians.^[12]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the senses “rancid” and “old, long kept”.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology, “Del lat. rancidus”.^[15]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the figurative sense of old things and old-fashioned people.^[16]

Meanings

Adjective

1. Of food, especially fatty food: rancid, having lost its good taste with time: La mantequilla olvidada en la despensa se puso rancia.^[4][1]
2. Of wine: aged, kept for a long time.^[4][1]
3. Of a thing: ancient, of long tradition: un linaje de rancio abolengo.^[4][17]
4. (derogatory) old-fashioned, belonging to past times; of a person, holding outdated ideas.^[4][1]
5. Of a person: dour, unsociable, unwilling to join in fun.^[17][18]
6. (Chile, colloquial) Of a person: behaving foolishly or improperly.^[21]

Noun

1. rancidity, the quality of being rancid.^[4]
2. Rancid bacon (tocino).^[4]
3. Greasy dirt on cloth while it is being worked, or left when it has not been worked well.^[4]

Word family

• rancidez
• enranciar
• ranciedad
• rancioso

Related words

• Latin rancidus
• Catalan ranci
• Portuguese ranço

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 767
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rancio
4. ^ 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. rancio
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 5417
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. rancidus
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2831
8. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. rance
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. rancidus
10. ^ 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. ranceō
11. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 405
12. ^ 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
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, s.v. rancio
14. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 279
15. ^ 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
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 841
17. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rancio
18. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. rancio
19. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. rancio
20. ^ Tobar, Carlos R. (1907), Consultas al Diccionario de la lengua, 2nd ed., Barcelona: Imprenta de la Revista Ibérica, p. 408
21. ^ 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. rancio
22. ^ 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. rancio