rumbo

Forms

rumbo m (plural rumbos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin rhombus (“rhombus, lozenge”), which is from Ancient Greek ῥόμβος (rhómbos).^[2][3][1] The word first named each of the divisions of the compass rose and of the horizon, because a lozenge was drawn in each of them on the compass card.^[4][3] Corominas thinks the cosmographers' learned rombo was altered to the present form in the mouths of sailors under the influence of the nautical term rumo “space or room in a ship”, which comes from Germanic: Dutch ruim, Old Norse rúm.^[4][3] The BDELC adds that sailors linked the lozenge with the magic signs of astrologers.^[3] Wiktionary calls the word inherited, and a doublet of the learned word.^[1]

The Germanic origin preferred by Jal, Littré and Bloch is rejected by Corominas: none of the Germanic words ever meant “course” or “point of the compass”, and the word reached France from the south, only in the 16th century.^[4] The DEEH traces it instead to English rhumb, which the DCECH shows is recorded only from 1578 and was said in 1599 to come from Portuguese.^[5][4] The same word is Portuguese rumo and Italian rombo, and sailors in Catalonia use Catalan rumb or the Castilian form.^[4][6] Corominas suspects that cartographers in Catalonia and cosmographers in Italy used the term in the Middle Ages, and that the voyages of discovery made it popular in Spanish and Portuguese.^[4]

The Greek noun comes from ῥέμβω (rhémbō, “to turn around”); in Latin it was also a magic wheel whirled on a string and a flatfish, the turbot.^[1][7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the powers that the Catholic Monarchs gave Juan and Ruy de Sosa in 1494 to treat with Portugal over the Ocean, where they may agree a boundary por aquellos rumbos de vientos e grados de Norte e de Sur “by those points of the winds and degrees north and south”.^[4] The sense is the original one: an ideal division of the horizon.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The sense “direction taken to reach a place, especially by a ship” soon prevailed: the BDELC dates it to 1535, in Fernández de Oviedo, who still glosses it as el mismo camino “the same way”.^[3][4] The word then became very common in the chronicles of the Indies; the CDH has Fernández de Enciso in 1519 and Hernán Cortés.^[9][4] By the Golden Age it had the figurative sense “moral course”, as in seguir el rumbo de los herejes.^[4][10] In the Americas it is the general word for any direction, on a journey or a walk, and gave rumbear “to head somewhere”.^[4][3]

Covarrubias in 1611 still defines it as the cosmographers' star-shaped figure on the chart and compass.^[11] The nautical senses “a hole in a ship's hull” and “a patch of plank”, and the heraldic “lozenge with a round hole”, are in the DLE.^[2] In Canarian Spanish al rumbo means “at random”.^[12]

Timeline

• 1494 – the powers of the Catholic Monarchs to Juan and Ruy de Sosa.^[4][3]
• 1519 – Fernández de Enciso's Suma de geografía (saber los rumbos por donde avían de navegar).^[9]
• 1533 – first record from the Americas, in Santa Marta.^[13]
• 1535 – Fernández de Oviedo uses it for the course of a ship.^[4][3]
• 1578 – first record of the English rhumb.^[4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines the cosmographers' figure.^[11]
• 1737 – the Autoridades has the course, the figurative way and the sense “pomp, show”.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A course, direction or bearing in the plane of the horizon, especially any of the points of the compass rose (rosa de los vientos): El velero puso rumbo al sur.^[2][1]
2. The way or course someone means to follow in what they do: Su vida tomó otro rumbo.^[2][14]
3. (heraldry) A lozenge with a round hole in the middle.^[2]
4. (nautical) A hole made or opened in a ship's hull.^[2]
5. (nautical) A piece of plank nailed on the side or deck of a ship where the seam cannot take oakum.^[2]
6. (Nicaragua) A patch on clothing.^[2][15]

Word family

• rumbear
• rumbón
• arrumbar

Related words

• rombo
• Latin rhombus
• Portuguese rumo

Usage notes

Rumbo “pomp, lavish show”, colloquial, is a separate word for the DLE, of onomatopoeic origin, and the source of rumboso “lavish, generous”.^[2][16] Corominas instead derives it from the lozenge as a magic sign, through “spell, charm” and “fame, prestige” (c. 1600), with rumboso first recorded in 1737.^[3] The DEEH puts it with an onomatopoeic rumb “noise”, like Italian rombo.^[17] Set phrases include hacer rumbo “to set course” and abatir el rumbo “to fall off to leeward”.^[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 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. rumbo
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. rumbo
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 83
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. rhombos
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 2970
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7291
9. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. rumbo
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 5, 654
11. ^ 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. 1274
12. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. rumbo
13. ^ 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. rumbo
14. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. rumbo
15. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. rumbo
16. ^ 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. rumboso
17. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. rumb