raza

Forms

raza f (plural razas)^[1]

Etymology

According to the Academy, it is borrowed from Italian razza, a word of uncertain origin, and Wiktionary also calls the Italian source possible.^[2][1] Corominas thinks Spanish took it from Catalan or Italian, probably first from Catalan raça, since its first user, Alfonso Martínez de Toledo, lived in Barcelona and often shows Catalan influence.^[3][4] The word is recorded earlier in the neighbouring languages than in Spanish: Old Occitan rassa in the 12th–13th centuries (mostly “league, conspiracy”, but also “people, folk”), razzo about 1300, and the Catalan word about 1400.^[3][4][5]

Corominas, following Canello, Spitzer and Prati, derives the Romance word from Latin ratio (“reckoning, account”) in its classical sense “nature, kind, species”, as a semi-learned form that keeps the nominative.^[3][4] He compares Old French générace (“generation”), and the masculine form of about 1300 supports this.^[3] In his Catalan dictionary he calls the Latin source beyond doubt, though he leaves open whether Catalan took the word directly or from Italy or Occitania.^[5] Nocentini, after Contini, derives the Italian word instead from haras (“stud farm”), whose sense moved from “breed of horses” to “kind, descent”;^[6][7] Gómez de Silva gives the same explanation.^[6][7]

Corominas rejects the older proposals: generātiō (Salvioni, Meyer-Lübke), Arabic رأس (raʾs, “head, source”) (Baist), a Slavic word for “blow, mark” (Gröber) and a Lombardic word akin to Old High German reiza (“line”) (Diez, Gamillscheg).^[3][8] He also separates it from Old Spanish raça (“thin place or flaw in cloth; fault”), which comes from Vulgar Latin *radia, a collective of radius (“ray”).^[3][4] The borrowing was confused with this native word, and that gave it an unfavourable colouring in the 16th century.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Corbacho of Alfonso Martínez de Toledo (1438): el bueno e de buena raça todavía retrae d'ó viene “the good man of good breed always takes after his origins”, set beside linaje.^[3][4] Corominas notes that the word was still not current: Alonso de Palencia and Nebrija lack it, and in 1570 Cristóbal de las Casas rendered Italian razza as casta, generación.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word spread at the end of the 16th century, mostly in the language of purity of blood, where raza meant a Jewish or Moorish strain in one's lineage: ningún cuerdo quiere muger con raza de judía ni de marrana “no sensible man wants a wife with a strain of Jew or Marrano” (Pineda, 1589).^[3] María Rosa Lida explained this negative sense as an influence of the native raça “flaw, fault”;^[3][9] Mariana, however, used the word neutrally of the human race.^[3][9] In 1737 the Diccionario de Autoridades defined it as the caste or quality of one's origin, usually in a bad sense when said of people, and quoted the proverb el can de buena raza, si hoy no caza, mañana caza.^[9]

The Academy's dictionary of 1869 has raza amarilla as one of the divisions of humankind by colour, and its 1899 edition adds the zoological sense of a subdivision of a species whose traits are inherited.^[10][11] The derivative racial, recorded in 1925, was modelled on English racial.^[4][3] In Mexico, Guatemala and Nicaragua la raza is popular for one's family, friends or people, and among Mexican Americans in the United States it names their own community.^[12][1]

Timeline

• 1438 – first record, in the Corbacho of Alfonso Martínez de Toledo.^[3][4]
• 1557 – a document from Guatemala speaks of an old Christian sin raza “without taint”.^[13]
• 1570 – Cristóbal de las Casas still translates Italian razza with other words.^[3]
• 1589 – Pineda's Agricultura cristiana uses it of Jewish ancestry.^[3]
• 1591 – Percyvall's Spanish–English dictionary includes the word.^[3]
• 1737 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it and quotes the proverb of the well-bred dog.^[9]
• 1869 – the Academy's dictionary lists raza amarilla among the divisions of humankind.^[10]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the biological sense, and derives the word from Latin radix.^[11]
• 1925 – the adjective racial is recorded.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. lineage, caste: the quality of one's origin or descent.^[2][1]
2. (biology) A breed or race: each of the groups into which some species are divided, whose distinguishing traits are inherited: una yegua de raza.^[2][1]
3. The quality of some things, by the features that define them.^[2]
4. (Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, colloquial) One's family, friends or people: Vino toda la raza a la fiesta.^[12][1]

Word family

• racial

Related words

• racismo
• racista
• Italian razza
• Catalan raça
• Latin ratio

Usage notes

Raza humana means “humankind”, and de raza is said of a pedigree animal.^[2] A separate, older raza (the DLE's raza²), Old Spanish raça from Latin *radia, means a crack or cleft, a ray of light coming through a chink, a crack in a horse's hoof, or a thin stripe in cloth.^{[2][3][14][1]} Nebrija has raça del sol “a sunbeam through a chink” and raça del paño “a thin place in cloth”.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. raza
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 800
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. raza
5. ^ 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, 26
6. ^ a b Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. razza
7. ^ a b Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
8. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org
9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 500
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 657
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 844
12. ^ 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. raza
13. ^ 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. raza
14. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. raza
15. ^ 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. raza