ronda

Forms

ronda f (plural rondas)^[1] Old Spanish had arobda in the Cid, arrobda and robda in the 13th century, beside ronda;^[2][3] Leonese had rolda.^[2][3]

Etymology

According to Corominas it is inherited from Old Spanish robda, earlier arobda, borrowed from Andalusian Arabic رَابِطَة (rābiṭa, “patrol of mounted warriors”), in its plural, which he writes rubṭ; it is the word that also gave rábida and is related to rebato.^[2][3][4] He explains the change of the cluster /bd/ to /nd/ as in guisante.^[2]

Corriente disagrees: the old forms come from an Andalusian Arabic word with the article, which he writes arrútba and which meant a turn of guard duty, from a Classical Arabic word for degree or rank.^[5][6] The modern noun probably comes from the same word, its form influenced by rondar.^[6] He denies that it shares the root of the word for a raid.^[5] DICCA-XV follows Corriente.^[7] The DLE now calls the word Romance, and Wiktionary leaves it uncertain, either from the Old Spanish form or a popular derivative of Latin rotundus (“round”).^[8][1]

An older view took the word from French ronde, the feminine of rond (“round”): so Meyer-Lübke, Steiger and the Academy, which in 1884 gave French as the source.^[2][9] Corominas rejects it, since the Spanish word is much older and the sense fits badly, and he holds that the French word and Italian ronda, both of the 16th century, were taken from Spanish.^[2] He also rejects the derivation from rotula (“little wheel”) proposed by García de Diego and Menéndez Pidal, which could have given a form like the Leonese rolda, but never one with /nd/.^[2] García de Diego's dictionary still lists the verb under a derivative of that Latin word.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid already has arobda for the scouting patrols of mounted men.^[2][3] Robda and ronda first appear in the Partidas of Alfonso X, about 1260.^[2][3][11]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija gave three senses: the place where the rounds are made, the man who makes them, and the act of patrolling.^[12][2] Covarrubias in 1611 defined it as the space between the inside of the town wall and the houses, and explained it as quasi rotunda, because old towns had round walls; the word also meant the soldiers going the rounds.^[13] Autoridades has the same three senses.^[14]

The Academy's 1884 edition added the serenading of young men at night, and the senses of card games.^[9] Today the word also names a round of negotiations, a round of drinks paid by one of a group, a stage of a sports competition and the roads that ring a city.^[8][15][1] In much of Spanish America it is a children's ring game, and in Peru the peasant communities' self-defence groups.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – arobda in the Cantar de mio Cid.^[2][3]
• c. 1260 – robda and ronda in the Partidas.^[2][3]
• c. 1300 – the verb rondar, earlier robdar.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives three senses.^[12][2]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains it as quasi rotunda.^[13]
• 1832 – rondalla, a band of young men going the rounds.^[3]
• 1884 – the Academy derives the word from French ronde.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A round or patrol: the act of going round a place to watch over it.^[8][1]
2. The group of people who make the rounds.^[8]
3. A night outing of young men playing and singing through the streets; a band of serenaders.^[8][1]
4. A series of events that take place in order within a limited time: La segunda ronda de contactos empieza el lunes.^[8][15]
5. (military) The space between the inner side of the wall and the houses of a fortified town.^[8][13]
6. A road or avenue that rings a city or its old quarter; a ring road.^[8][1]
7. (card games) A turn of all the players.^[8]
8. A round of drinks or food paid for by one of the group: Esta ronda la pago yo.^[8][15][1]
9. (sports) A stage of a competition: El equipo pasó a la segunda ronda.^[8]
10. (military) A patrol that goes through the streets or visits the outer posts of a stronghold.^[8]
11. (Latin America) A ring that children form holding hands, in some games.^[16]

Word family

• rondar
• rondín
• rondalla
• rondador

Related words

• rebato
• rábida

Usage notes

Corominas separates an Old Spanish ronda or roda “toll paid for livestock”, found in Juan Ruiz, which comes from an Arabic word for a tax on livestock.^[2] The DLE keeps it as robda, an obsolete word.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 809
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ronda
4. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. ronda
5. ^ a b Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 129
6. ^ a b Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. arrobda
7. ^ 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. ronda
8. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. ronda
9. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 941
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. *rotulare
11. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. ronda
12. ^ a b Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 411
13. ^ 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. 1271
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. ronda
15. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. ronda
16. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. ronda
17. ^ 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. robda