ron

Forms

ron m (plural rones)^[1] Early records spell it rrom (Santa Gertrudis, c. 1770), rom (Puerto Rico 1765, Cuba 1839) and rhon (Honduras 1821).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from English rum.^[4][5][1] Corominas thinks that it probably came through French rhum, pronounced /rom/, which is found from 1688 with reference to English America.^[2]

The English word is recorded from 1654, and is probably a shortening of rumbullion (1651), an earlier name for the same liquor; rumbustion (1652), rumbo and rumbowling were also used for it.^[2][5] The drink was first made in Barbados and was drunk by sailors.^[2] Skeat and others took it to be a figurative use of a Devon dialect word meaning “tumult”, after the brawls the liquor caused, which fits the parallel of rumbustious (“boisterous”) beside the other name of the drink; as the NED notes, this origin is not proved.^[2][5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest record in the Americas is a list of goods from Puerto Rico of 1765, aguardiente, rom, galones de oro y plata, vino “brandy, rum, gold and silver braid, wine”.^[3] Corominas's first record is the Majorcan friar Juan de Santa Gertrudis, about 1770, who describes rrom as a spirit distilled from fermented guarapo (sugar-cane juice).^[2][5]

Semantic evolution

A text of 1775 from New Granada says of the cane juice that sacan el aguardiente que (...) llaman ron “they draw from it the spirit they call ron”.^[3] The Academy entered the word in 1817 as a sugar spirit, and in 1843 as a spirit extracted from sugar.^[7][8] Domínguez added in 1846 that it was distilled especially in parts of America and that the rum of Jamaica was famous.^[9] The 1899 edition gave the English etymology and described the drink as distilled from fermented molasses and cane juice and coloured with caramel.^[10] Today it is defined as an alcoholic drink obtained by fermenting sugar cane.^[4][11]

Timeline

• 1651–1654 – English rumbullion and then rum are recorded.^[2]
• 1688 – French rhum is recorded, with reference to English America.^[2]
• 1765 – first Spanish record, rom, in Puerto Rico.^[3]
• c. 1770 – Juan de Santa Gertrudis writes rrom in his Maravillas del Perú.^[2][5]
• 1775 – the form ron in New Granada.^[3]
• 1817 – first in the Academy's dictionary.^[2][7]
• 1899 – the Academy gives the etymology Del ingl. rum.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. rum: an alcoholic drink made by fermenting and distilling the juice of sugar cane or molasses: Brindaron con un vaso de ron añejo.^[4][11][1]

Related words

• English rum
• French rhum

Usage notes

In the Dominican Republic ron is also a circle.^[12] In Veracruz the word names a square drawn on the ground in a game of marbles, which Santamaría tentatively derives from English round.^[13]

References

1. ^ a b c d 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, 49
3. ^ a b c d e 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. ron
4. ^ a b c 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. ron
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ron
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. ron
7. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 770
8. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 643
9. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1523
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 881
11. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ron
12. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. ron
13. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 946