ribera

Forms

ribera f (plural riberas)^[1] Old Spanish texts also write ripera, rribera, rebera, arribera and rivera.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Medieval Latin rīpāria, recorded in Medieval Latin for riverside land, a riverbank and a river.^[1][4] The Academy's 2001 dictionary, Moliner and Gómez de Silva start from a Vulgar Latin *riparia, the feminine of Latin rīpārius (“of a riverbank”), from rīpa (“riverbank”).^[5][6][7] The current DLE analyses it instead as a Spanish derivative of riba with the suffix -era, and Corominas lists it among the derivatives of that word that Spanish shares with the rest of Ibero- and Gallo-Romance.^[8][9][10] Lanchetas explained the form by a shift of the /i/: *ripaira, then *ripeira and ribeira, before the modern form.^[11]

The same word is Portuguese ribeira, Galician ribeira, Catalan ribera, Occitan ribèra, Aragonese ripera and Old French riviere;^[1][9][12] Corominas notes that the Pyrenean Catalan word, like the French, can mean a river or a valley floor.^[1][9][12]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *reipā- and Proto-Indo-European *h₁reip-h₂- (“steep slope”) for the Latin noun, with cognates in Ancient Greek ἐρείπω (ereípō, “to throw down”) and Old Norse rífa (“to tear down”).^[13][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word from charters of 1064 and 1070 in Oelschläger's list;^[9][10][2] DEMel has the Latinising ripera in a Cardeña cartulary charter of 1060.^[9][10][2] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) it names the strip of land along a river: Ribera de Salón toda irá a mal “the whole bank of the Jalón will go to ruin”.^[14]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish used the word for the land along a river and the floor of a valley, as in the Libro de Alexandre and Juan Ruiz, and for the bank of a river or the shore of the sea, as in Nebrija.^[9][15] Covarrubias recorded the phrase ser de monte y ribera “to be good for anything”, and Autoridades in 1737 defined the word as the bank or shore of a sea or river and, by extension, the land near a river.^[16][17] Cervantes uses volar la ribera, a hawking term for working the banks to flush birds; the Academy recorded it in 1869, with a figurative sense “to lead a wandering, adventurous life”.^[18][19]

The Academy's 1884 edition added “an enclosed garden beside a river”; today the DLE also has a sense of Valladolid, a country house with vineyards and fruit trees near a river or the city.^[20][8] In León ribera names each of the valleys of the Esla, Porma, Cea and Torío with their villages.^[21] In the Americas it is recorded from 1531 in Santo Domingo.^[22]

Timeline

• 1060 – ripera in a charter of the Cardeña cartulary.^[2]
• 1064 – first record in a Romance charter, according to Corominas.^[9][10]
• c. 1140 – Ribera de Salón in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija distinguishes ribera de mar and ribera de rio.^[23]
• 1531 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[22]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records ser de monte y ribera.^[16]
• 1737 – the Diccionario de Autoridades and the derivative ribereño.^[17][10]
• 1869 – the Academy records volar la ribera.^[19]
• 1899 – the Academy derives the word from Latin riparia.^[24]

Meanings

Noun

1. The bank or shore of a sea, river or lake, and the land beside it.^[8][1]
2. The strip of land watered by a river: la ribera del Tajo.^[8][6]
3. A ribero, a bank of stakes and turf along a dam.^[8]
4. An enclosed orchard or garden bordering a river.^[8]
5. (Valladolid) A country house with vineyards and fruit trees near a river or the city.^[8]

Word family

• ribereño
• riberano
• riberiego
• ribero

Related words

• riba
• arribar
• arriba
• Latin rīpa
• Portuguese ribeira

Usage notes

Volar la ribera is a hunting phrase for going from bank to bank to flush birds, and colloquially “to lead a wandering life”.^[8] The DLE has a second, masculine ribera (also ribera del Duero), named after the Ribera del Duero district: a wine grown and made there.^[25] Román warns against confusing ribera with rivera “brook”, which comes from Latin rivus.^[26]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. ribera
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 375
4. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. riparia
5. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. ribera
6. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ribera
7. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. ribera
8. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. ribera
9. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 8
10. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. riba
11. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 668
12. ^ a b Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. ribera
13. ^ 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. rīpa
14. ^ 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. ribera
15. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 409
16. ^ 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
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 619
18. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 979
19. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 683
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 934
21. ^ Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. ribera
22. ^ 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. ribera
23. ^ 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. ribera
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 875
25. ^ 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. ribera del Duero
26. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 123