riba

Forms

riba f (plural ribas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish riba, inherited from Latin rīpa (“bank of a river”).^[2][3][4][1] The voicing of Latin /p/ between vowels gave the /b/, and the spelling with ⟨b⟩ is constant in the old texts;^[2] Corominas calls the modern spelling ⟨v⟩ of the surnames ⟨Riva⟩ and ⟨Rivas⟩ contrary to both history and etymology.^[2]

The same Latin word is Portuguese riba, Galician riba, Asturian riba, Catalan riba, Occitan riba, French rive, Italian riva and Romanian râpă, the Romanian word meaning “steep place”.^[5][6][1] Catalan has kept it as a living noun, and in Catalan as in Old Spanish it was often used in locative phrases meaning “on the seashore”.^[2][7]

De Vaan derives the Latin noun from *reipā- and *h₁reip-h₂- (“steep slope”), comparing ἐρείπω (ereípō, “to throw down, fall down”), ἐρίπνη (erípnē, “slope”) and rífa (“to tear down”).^[8] The DHLF notes that there seems to be no link with rīvus (“stream”).^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a charter of 942 in Oelschläger's list; the DEMel's earliest is a charter of San Vicente de Oviedo of 970.^[2][10] In a Castilian text, the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) tells Moses to go to meet Pharaoh a la riba del flum “at the bank of the river”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In Castilian the word tended from the start to become fixed in phrases and place names: Berceo's en riba de la mar “on the seashore” and en riba de Thanays “on the bank of the Tanais” in the Libro de Alexandre are prepositional phrases, and free uses such as non saldredes más tarde a riba “you will come ashore no later” in the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca are found only in 13th-century texts.^[2] One manuscript of the Alexandre already replaces it with ribera.^[2] Neither the glossaries of about 1400 nor Alonso de Palencia or Nebrija record the word.^[2] Covarrubias in 1611 illustrates it only with place names such as Ribagorza, Ribadeo and Ribadavia, and Autoridades declared it obsolete.^[2][12][13]

The Academy added in 1817 an Aragonese sense, the slope between a higher and a lower field, a synonym of ribazo, which became the word's first sense in 1899 and in today's DLE.^[14][15][4] Borao recorded it in Aragon with this meaning.^[16] In Navarre it means the wall of the bed of an irrigation ditch.^[2][17]

Timeline

• 942 – a charter in Oelschläger's list, the DCECH's first record.^[2][3]
• 970 – a charter of San Vicente de Oviedo writes riba.^[10]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar has a la riba del flum (in a 13th-century copy).^[11]
• 13th century – Berceo writes en riba de la mar, and the Libro de Alexandre en riba de Thanays.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias lists the place names formed with riba.^[12]
• 1737 – Autoridades marks it as an old word used only in compounds.^[13]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the Aragonese sense “slope between two fields”.^[14]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin ripa and puts “ribazo” first.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. A piece of land with some rise and slope; a ribazo.^[4][17]
2. (in compounds) Land near a river, as in place names such as Ribagorza and Ribadavia.^[4][1]
3. (obsolete) The bank or shore of the sea or of a river.^[4][1]
4. (Navarre) The wall of the bed of an irrigation ditch (acequia).^[17]

Word family

• ribazo
• ribera
• arribar
• arriba
• ribereño

Related words

• Latin rīpa
• Catalan riba
• French rive

Usage notes

The adverb arriba “up, above”, first recorded in the 10th century, is a compound of riba, and Portuguese em riba “on top” shows the same use.^[3][18] In Murcia a riba is a piece fallen from the bank of an irrigation channel.^[19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, s.v. riba
3. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. riba
4. ^ a b c d e 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. riba
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7328
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5714
7. ^ 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, 306
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. rive
10. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. riba
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. riba
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. 1265
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 619
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 765
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 875
16. ^ Borao, Jerónimo (1908), Diccionario de voces aragonesas, 2nd ed., Zaragoza: Imprenta del Hospicio Provincial, p. 295
17. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. riba
18. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. riba
19. ^ Sevilla, Alberto (1919), Vocabulario murciano, Murcia: Imprenta de Sucesores de Nogués, p. 165