rostro

Forms

rostro m (plural rostros)^[1] Old Spanish wrote both rostro and rrostro.^[2] Juan Ruiz also has rosto, with the second /r/ lost by dissimilation, as in Portuguese.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish rostro, inherited from Latin rōstrum (“beak; snout, muzzle”).^[3][4][5][1] The Latin noun is a derivative of rōdō (“to gnaw”) with the instrumental suffix -trum, so it was properly “the thing that gnaws”, a bird's beak or the snout of a pig or a dog.^[3][6][7] Only very colloquial authors such as Plautus and Petronius applied it to people, as a jibe, much as hocico or jeta are used in Spanish; in later Latin this use became more frequent and gradually lost its mocking tone.^[3] The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *Hreh₃d- (“to gnaw, scrape”) or *ureh₃d-.^[8][1]

The same Latin word is Portuguese rosto (older rostro), Galician rosto, Aromanian rost (“mouth”) and Romanian rost.^[9][10][11] Coromines regards Catalan rostre “face” as a borrowing from Spanish, while the learned French rostre “ram of a ship; beak” was taken directly from Latin.^[12][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140), in the scene of the lion that meets the Cid: ante mio Cid la cabeça premió e el rostro fincó “before my Cid it bowed its head and lowered its muzzle”.^[14][3] Menéndez Pidal glosses the word here as “snout, mouth”.^[15]

Semantic evolution

Throughout the Middle Ages rostro kept its Latin sense of “beak” or “pointed snout”: Juan Ruiz writes of a mule sharpening its rostros and teeth.^[3] Applied to people it meant “mouth, lips” with a strongly contemptuous tone, as in Juan Ruiz's monstrous mountain girl with boca de alano e los rrostros muy gordos “a mastiff's mouth and very thick lips”, and the Moriscos of the 16th century still used it for “lip”.^[3] Corominas dates the sense “brutish human snout” to about 1280.^[4] Alfonso X's prose also uses it for the iron ram of a ship and for a pointed spur of a mountain.^[16]

The change to “face” took centuries, and had begun in Latin.^[3] A blow en el rostro in the Libro de Apolonio already points that way, and the 14th-century Castigos of Sancho IV use the word for the prominent part of the face, with mouth, nose and eyes.^[3] By the 15th century the common language used rostro only for the face, and Covarrubias's mention of the old sense in 1611 is a Latinism.^[3][4] Covarrubias and the Diccionario de Autoridades record phrases such as rostro a rostro “face to face”, a rostro firme “face to face, resolutely” and hacer rostro “to stand up to the enemy”.^[17][18]

Today the word is formal beside cara, and Moliner notes that the phrases built with it are falling out of use.^[19][1] In colloquial Spain rostro has also come to mean “cheek, nerve”, like cara and jeta.^[5][20] In Honduras it names the catafalque of a church funeral.^[21]

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid uses rostro for a lion's muzzle.^[14][3]
• 1218–1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes doubles the fine when a nose is cut off together with the rostro.^[14]
• 13th century – the first hints of the sense “prominent part of the face”.^[4][3]
• 1270–1284 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España describes ships armed with iron rostros, rams.^[16]
• c. 1280 – the word is used for a brutish human snout.^[4]
• 15th century – rostro means only “face” in the common language.^[4][3]
• 1525 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[22]
• 1539 – first record of the derivative derrostrarse, and arrostrar follows about 1580.^[4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records rostro a rostro and hacer rostro.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology and the obsolete sense “mask”.^[23]

Meanings

Noun

1. The face of a person: Tenía el rostro cubierto de pecas.^[5][1][20]
2. The countenance: the face as it shows a mood: Nos recibió con el rostro sereno.^[5]
3. The characteristic look of something: La crisis mostró el rostro más duro del mercado.^[5]
4. (nautical) The ram of a ship (espolón).^[5][20]
5. (colloquial) cheek, nerve (desfachatez): ¡Hace falta rostro para pedir otro préstamo!^[5][19]
6. (zoology) The beak of a bird; by extension, a beak-like structure of other animals such as crustaceans.^[5]
7. (obsolete) Snout, mouth; a mask (careta).^[5]
8. (Honduras) A catafalque for a church funeral.^[21]

Word family

• arrostrar
• derrostrarse
• enrostrar
• sorrostrada

Related words

• roer
• Latin rōstrum
• Portuguese rosto

Usage notes

A rostro firme “face to face, without embarrassment and resolutely” and conocer de rostro “to know personally” are now marked as dated.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. rostro
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 75
4. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rostro
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. rostro
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. rostro
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5744
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. rōstrum
11. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. rosto
12. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 7, 491
13. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. rostre
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. rostro
15. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 424
16. ^ a b 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. rostro
17. ^ 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. 1272
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 645
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rostro
20. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. rostro
21. ^ 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. rostro
22. ^ 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. rostro
23. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 943