rojo

Forms

rojo (feminine roja, masculine plural rojos, feminine plural rojas)^[1] Old Spanish and Golden Age texts spell the word roxo, the spelling under which the Diccionario de Autoridades still enters it.^[2][3] The prose of Alfonso X has roxo and the plural rosios.^[4] Leonese of Babia has roixo and roxio;^[5] Asturian has roxu.^[6][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish roxo, inherited from Latin russeus (“deep red”).^[2][7][1] The DLE gives instead the simpler adjective russus (“red”), from which the Latin word is derived.^[8][9] García de Diego also files the word under the simpler adjective and notes that a Latin /ss/ can give Spanish ⟨j⟩ without a following /e/, as in vejiga.^[6] Wiktionary compares the same development of /ss/ in bajar and cejar.^[1]

Corominas notes that the derived adjective was used by the authors of the Silver Age and by Petronius, and that it survives only in Portuguese, Spanish and the dialects of central and southern Italy.^[2] From it come Portuguese roxo and Galician roxo; from the simpler adjective come Italian rosso, French roux and Catalan ros.^[2][10][11] Nocentini derives Romanian roșu from the derived adjective too, but Corominas holds that the Romanian word continues roseus (“rose-coloured”).^[10][2] French rouge and Catalan roig are of another Latin adjective, rubeus, and have no direct connection with the Spanish word.^[7][2]

The simpler adjective goes back to Proto-Italic *russos and ultimately to Proto-Indo-European *h₁rewdʰ- (“red”).^[1] Nocentini reconstructs it as *rudh-tos, from the same root as the French and Catalan words.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The prose of Alfonso X has the word for a bull rising in the fifth degree of a sign, enel quinto grado sube un toro roxo “in the fifth degree a red bull rises” (siglum PIC, 1256?), in the sense of a vivid golden or reddish colour.^[4] Another Alfonsine text (siglum MOA) tells the reader to heat bricks fasta que sean bien rosios “until they are quite red”.^[4] DEMel lists the forms ruyo and Roio from charters of Oña (1144) and Huesca (1148).^[12] Corominas notes that the Portuguese word appears as a man's name or nickname in documents from about 1060, and that the surname Rojo is very common in Spain and Portugal.^[2]

For Corominas the word is foreign to almost all medieval literature: the Cid, Berceo, the Libro de Alexandre, Juan Ruiz and the Celestina say bermejo.^[2] His first records are a 15th-century Jewish Bible translation (Genesis 30:40) and G. de Segovia in 1475.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages the usual word for the colour of blood was bermejo, while colorado and encarnado appear later, perhaps no earlier than rojo.^[2] Corominas concludes that the medieval word named a less common, lighter shade, the reddish colour of hair still fixed in pelirrojo and the classical barbirrojo “red-bearded”: Nebrija translated it by Latin rutilus “reddish, golden”, and Alcalá by an Arabic word for “reddish” or “blond”.^[2][7] A. Castro had argued that it always meant the colour of blood, and C. de las Casas in 1570 already contrasts roxo “red” with ruvio “blond”.^[2] Corominas does not rule out that French rouge helped the shift to the modern sense in the 18th century.^[2] Portuguese roxo went another way and now means “purple”.^[2][13]

The Diccionario de Autoridades defined roxo as a very bright red like that of blood, and also as golden like the sun.^[3] In 1884 the Academy called it the first colour of the solar spectrum.^[14] The political sense “left-wing, communist” is now in the DLE, with the Civil War sense “Republican”, the name the Nationalists gave their opponents.^[8][15] In Colombia and Honduras rojo means a supporter of the Liberal Party, and in Honduras and Nicaragua a failing grade.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1256 – an Alfonsine text (siglum PIC) speaks of un toro roxo.^[4]
• 15th century – roxo in a Jewish Bible translation, Genesis 30:40.^[2]
• 1475 – recorded by G. de Segovia.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija translates roxo by rutilus.^[2]
• 1513 – the derivative rojear in G. A. de Herrera.^[7][2]
• 1570 – C. de las Casas contrasts roxo “red” with ruvio “blond”.^[2]
• 1588 – first record from the Americas, in the New Kingdom of Granada.^[17]
• 1589 – sonrojar in J. de Pineda.^[2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the word from Latin rufus.^[18]
• 1737 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as the colour of blood.^[3]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary calls it the first colour of the spectrum and derives it from roseus.^[14]
• 1899 – the Academy changes the etymology to russus.^[19]

Meanings

Adjective

1. red: of the colour of blood or a ripe tomato, the first colour of the light spectrum: Llevaba una bufanda roja.^[8][1]
2. Golden, like rubio.^[8]
3. Of hair: bright reddish blond, ginger.^[8][15]
4. (politics) left-wing, especially communist; often as a noun.^[8][1]
5. (history) In the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, Republican (republicano); often as a noun.^[8][15]
6. (Colombia, Honduras) Belonging to or supporting the Liberal Party.^[16]
7. (Honduras, Nicaragua) Of a school mark: failing.^[16]

Noun

1. The colour red.^[8][1]
2. A red dye or pigment.^[8]
3. The red light of a traffic light, which means stop: El coche se detuvo en el rojo.^[8]
4. (Costa Rica) A 1000-colón note.^[1]

Word family

• rojear
• rojez
• rojizo
• enrojecer
• sonrojar
• rojura
• enrojar
• pelirrojo
• sonrojo

Related words

• rubio
• Latin russus
• Portuguese roxo

Usage notes

Al rojo and al rojo vivo describe metal glowing with heat and, figuratively, feelings or situations at their height;^[1][20] al rojo blanco is white heat.^[8][15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 49
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 646
4. ^ a b c d 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. rojo
5. ^ a b Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. roxu
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. russus
7. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rojo
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. rojo
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
11. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7465
12. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. rojo
13. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2961
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. 939
15. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rojo
16. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. rojo
17. ^ 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. rojo
18. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1269
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 879
20. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 402