raya

raya¹ line, stripe

Pronunciation

• /ˈraʝa/, [ˈra.ʝa], /ˈraʃa/^[1]

Forms

raya f (plural rayas)^[1]

Etymology

The word for a line is probably inherited from Vulgar Latin *radia, derived from Latin radius (“spoke of a wheel; ray of light”), from the straight shape of both.^[2][3][4][1] The DLE calls this etymon Low Latin rather than Vulgar Latin.^[4] Wiktionary also allows a feminine formed beside rayo or the verb rayar, and calls the word probably a doublet of raza.^[1]

Corominas describes it as common to Castilian, Portuguese raia and French raie, and of uncertain origin.^[2][3] The French word has two senses: “furrow”, common from the 12th century in the form Old French roie and clearly the Celtic word *rica (“furrow”) (like Occitan rega, and related to German Furche, English furrow and Latin porca), and “line”, which Meyer-Lübke derived from radiare while Gamillscheg and Bloch took it for the same Celtic word.^[2] That view would make the Spanish word a Gallicism, which Corominas rejects on phonetic grounds: a loan from the Old French form before the 14th century would have given *roya, yet the Spanish word is recorded in 1288.^[2] He concludes that French merged two words, one Celtic and one Latin.^[2] Gómez de Silva nonetheless derives the Spanish word from the French one and so from the Celtic word, and Bénaben reports the same Celtic origin for the French word.^[5][6] Corominas also separates Catalan ratlla and ralla “line” from this family.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The noun is found in the Picatrix translated for Alfonso X (1256): faz aderredor dellos una raya “draw a line around them”.^[7][8] The CDH's earlier hit, non raya in the Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250), is the verb rayar “to strike out”.^[8] The DCECH's first records are the Libro del acedrex of 1288 and Sem Tob, c. 1360, who writes of a good custom that un dedo fuera / de la rraya asygnada “a finger beyond the appointed line” is as bad as a day's journey beyond it.^[2]

Semantic evolution

From the line drawn on a surface the word spread to lines of colour, scratches and furrows, and to boundaries.^[2][4] Covarrubias (1611) derived it from the likeness of the sun's rays, recorded estar a raya “to keep to one's orders”, passar de raya “to go beyond what is right” and the children's game tres en raya, and noted that it also meant the border of a kingdom, the people who lived there being gente de raya.^[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades has the line, the boundary of a province or jurisdiction, and the limit set to anything, physical or moral.^[10] The derivative subrayar reached the Academy's dictionary only in 1884.^[2][3]

Modern senses include the dash used in writing, the parting of the hair, the crease of trousers, the rifling of a gun barrel and, in drug slang, a line of cocaine.^[4][1]

Timeline

• 1256 – the Picatrix has the first record of the noun.^[7][11]
• c. 1275 – the General Estoria has the plural raias.^[8]
• 1288 – the Libro del acedrex, the DCECH's and the BDELC's first record.^[2][3]
• c. 1360 – Sem Tob uses la rraya asygnada figuratively, for a limit.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives raia para señalar as Latin linea, and raiar “to draw a line”.^[12]
• 1532 – first records from the Americas, in Mexico.^[13]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records estar a raya, passar de raya and tres en raya.^[9]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. radius”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A line drawn on a surface.^[4][1]
2. A stripe formed by one colour against another: una corbata de rayas azules.^[4]
3. A shallow scratch or groove in a surface.^[4][1]
4. (typography) The dash (—), longer than the hyphen, used in pairs around an aside and before each speaker's words in a dialogue.^[4][1]
5. The border or limit of a country, province or district.^[4][1]
6. The boundary of a large estate.^[4]
7. A limit set to anything, physical or moral: tener a raya.^[4]
8. A firebreak.^[4]
9. A point scored in certain games, usually marked with a line.^[4]
10. The parting of the hair.^[4][1]
11. A spiral groove in the bore of a firearm, the rifling.^[4]
12. A coarse sherry of the oloroso type.^[4]
13. The crease ironed into trousers.^[4]
14. (slang) A line of cocaine prepared for snorting.^[4]

Word family

• rayado
• rayar
• subrayar
• rayuela
• rayano

raya² ray (fish)

Etymology tree of raya²

inherited borrowed derived

Latin raia

Spanish raya

From the same root · raya²

English ray ← raia

Pronunciation

• /ˈraʝa/, [ˈra.ʝa], /ˈraʃa/^[1]

Forms

raya f (plural rayas)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the fish is inherited from Latin raia (“ray, skate”).^{[15][3][4][1]} The Latin name is first found in Pliny.^[16][17] The DCECH notes that it has left descendants in all the western Romance languages, and the REW lists French raie, Occitan raia, Portuguese arraia and the Venetian form that gave Italian razza, with Catalan rajada formed from it.^[15][18][19]

De Vaan reads the Latin word as /rajja/, from Proto-Italic *rajjā, and compares Germanic names of the ray, Middle Dutch rogghe (Dutch rog), Middle Low German rugge and Old English reohhe.^[17][1] The correspondences are irregular, and he and Wiktionary suggest a word borrowed from a non-Indo-European language.^[17][1] Rohlfs proposed identifying it with dialectal Italian raggia (“bramble”), as several Mediterranean languages give the ray, for its tail spines, the name of a thorny plant, while Bertoldi thought it Etruscan.^[15]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Arte cisoria of 1423 lists ralla among the fish to be carved, between asnos and xibia.^[12] The DCECH's first record is Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary, c. 1495: raia, pescado de los llanos “ray, a fish of the shallows”, Latin raia.^[15][20]

Timeline

• 1423 – the Arte cisoria has ralla.^[12]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses raia as la raia pescado.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin dictionary, the DCECH's first record.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias calls it a well-known fish.^[9]
• 1884 – the Academy defines it as a genus of flat cartilaginous fish, “Del lat. raia”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A ray or skate, a cartilaginous fish with a flat, diamond-shaped body and a long thin tail with a row of spines, common in Spanish waters.^[4][1]
2. (zoology) Any fish of the suborder of rays.^[4]