sanguijuela

Forms

sanguijuela f (plural sanguijuelas)^[1] Old Spanish had sanguisuela (1148), sanguesuela (12th century), sangusuela (late 13th century) and sangujuela (c. 1300, in a manuscript of the Cavallero Zifar); Nebrija still wrote sanguisuela.^[2][3] Asturian and Salamanca speech have sandrijuela, and Asturian also sanixuela.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish sanguisuela, inherited from Vulgar Latin *sanguisugiola, according to Corominas: a diminutive of sanguisugia, a popular variant of Latin sanguisūga (“leech, bloodsucker”), which is formed from sanguis (“blood”) and sūgō (“to suck”).^[2][3][5] The popular pronunciation *sanguisujola became *sanguisyuela, with the usual loss of the inner unstressed vowel, and then the modern form, with the same change of /sj/ as in tijera from older tisera.^[2][3]

Corominas rejects other explanations: a borrowing from French with the suffix -uela, a Galician base sanguxa, or sangre with two diminutive suffixes; the old forms, with voiced /z/ or /ʒ/, rule out the Galician word.^[2] The DLE, however, derives the word from sanguja, and Wiktionary gives this as the less likely view, since that word is first recorded only in 1494.^[6][1]

The Latin noun itself gave Italian sanguisuga and French sangsue, and Galician-Portuguese forms such as Galician sambesuga and Portuguese sambexuga.^[7][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates sanguisuela to 1148.^[2][3] The earliest context in the CDH is the Moamín (1250, in a 13th-century copy), a book on hunting birds: if a hawk has a leech in its throat, sofúmenlos con las luziérnegas “let them be fumigated with fireflies”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Medieval texts name the leech mostly in veterinary and medical writing, and the Alba Bible glosses that la sangusuela tiene dos bocas “the leech has two mouths”.^[8] The figurative sense is recorded in Mexico in 1580: somos como la sanguijuela, que chupamos la sangre y la vida de aquellos a quien nos allegamos “we are like the leech, sucking the blood and life of those we attach ourselves to”.^[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades defines this sense as a person who skilfully and little by little draws money and valuables from another, and notes that some said sanguisuela, closer to the Latin.^[10] Terreros calls the leech an emblem of satire and of the greedy rich man who sucks the blood of the poor.^[11]

The Academy gave a zoological description in 1817 and its leech was used in medicine for bloodletting; in 1884 it derived the word from Latin sanguisuga.^[12][13] From 1899 it has derived it from sanguja.^[14][6]

Timeline

• 1148 – sanguisuela.^[2][3]
• 1250 – sangusuela in the Moamín.^[8]
• c. 1300 – sangujuela in the Cavallero Zifar.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives sanguisuela for Latin sanguisuga and hirudo.^[15]
• 16th century – the modern form sanguijuela.^[3]
• 1571 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[9]
• 1580 – the figurative sense, in Mexico.^[9]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the figurative sense.^[10]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives an etymology, Latin sanguisuga.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A leech: a freshwater annelid with a sucker at each end that feeds on the blood of the animals it clings to; some species were used in medicine for bloodletting.^[6][1]
2. (colloquial) A person who little by little drains another of money or goods; a bloodsucker: Su socio resultó ser una sanguijuela.^[6][16]

Related words

• sangre
• sanguja
• sanguisuela

Usage notes

Moliner gives sanguisuela, sanguja and sangonera as synonyms.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 152
3. ^ a b c d e f g Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sangre
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. sanguisuga
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ a b c d 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. sanguijuela
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7575
8. ^ 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. sanguijuela
9. ^ a b c 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. sanguijuela
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 39
11. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 436
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 785
13. ^ 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. 957
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 897
15. ^ 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. sanguijuela
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. sanguijuela
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sanguijuela