rodilla

Forms

rodilla f (plural rodillas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish rodiella, inherited from Late Latin rotella (“little wheel”), a diminutive of rota (“wheel”).^[2][3][4][1] The word first meant “kneecap”, from the shape of the bone, and then came to mean “knee” in place of the old name hinojo, from Latin genuculum, which after the loss of initial ⟨f-⟩ became identical with the word for “fennel”, from fenuculum.^[2][3]

Outside the area where ⟨f-⟩ was lost, the word kept the sense “kneecap”: Old Galician-Portuguese rodela, Italian rotella, Catalan rodella and similar forms in Occitan, Romansh, Sardinian and northern Italian dialects.^[2][5] Asturian has rodiella and, in the sense “kneecap”, ruilla.^[6][1]

The Latin noun goes back to *rotā, from Proto-Indo-European *Hreth₂- (“to run, roll”); de Vaan explains it as the feminine of an adjective “revolving”, and it has cognates meaning “wheel” in Baltic, Germanic and Celtic.^[7][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora (stanza 166) has fincada tu rodiella, “with your knee bent”, of someone kneeling in prayer.^[2] His Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (c. 1236, in a late 13th-century copy) also uses it of kneeling: la rodiella fincada.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The Poridat de las poridades (c. 1250) reads arms that reach down to the rrodiella as a sign of a generous, noble person.^[8] Another line of senses comes from the round shape: in Zamora the word names a ring-shaped pad for carrying loads on the head.^[2] From that came the sense of a coarse cloth for cleaning, recorded in Juan Ruiz, in Nebrija's rodilla de lienço and in 1603 as rodilla de limpiar platos.^[2][3] The Academy's 1884 edition treated this cloth as a separate word derived from rodar.^[9]

Covarrubias in 1611 explained the word as rotilla, for the half-ball shape of the kneecap, and gave servir de rodillas “to serve with great reverence”; the Diccionario de Autoridades (1726) explained it as if redondilla “little round thing”.^[10][11] The modern DLE applies the word also to the joint of the foreleg in quadrupeds.^[4]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – rodiella in Berceo's Milagros de Nuestra Señora.^[2][3]
• c. 1236 – Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (in a later 13th-century copy).^[8]
• c. 1250 – rrodiella in the Poridat de las poridades.^[8]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario names a star in the right rodiella of a constellation.^[12]
• c. 1300 – the verb arrodillar in the Gran conquista de Ultramar.^[2][3]
• 1335 – the sense “cleaning cloth”.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija distinguishes rodilla de la pierna (Latin genu) from rodilla de lienço.^[13][2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains the word from its round shape.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin rotella.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. The knee: the joint between the thigh and the lower leg.^[4][1]
2. The front of the knee.^[4][15]
3. In quadrupeds, the joint between the forearm and the cannon bone (caña).^[4]
4. A ring-shaped pad for carrying a load on the head; rodete.^[4][10]
5. A coarse cloth for cleaning, especially in the kitchen.^[4][3]

Word family

• rodillera
• rodillazo
• rodillada
• rodillero
• arrodillar

Related words

• rueda
• rótula
• rodela
• hinojo
• Latin rota

Usage notes

De rodillas means “kneeling”, and a media rodilla “on one knee”.^[14] The old word for the knee, hinojo, survives in de hinojos “on one's knees”.^[15][2]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 83
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rueda
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. rodilla
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. rotella
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. rotella
7. ^ 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. rota
8. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. rodilla
9. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 939
10. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1268
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 631
12. ^ Kasten, Lloyd A.; Nitti, John J.; Gago Jover, Francisco (2002–), Diccionario de la prosa castellana del Rey Alfonso X, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (electronic edition 2024), p. s.v. rodilla
13. ^ 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. rodilla
14. ^ 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. 938
15. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rodilla