sebo

Forms

sebo m (plural sebos)^[1] Old Spanish usually wrote sevo, the spelling of the Libro de Apolonio, the Escorial glossary and Nebrija;^[2][3] Palencia has both sevo and sebo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish sevo, inherited from Latin sēbum (“tallow, hard animal fat”).^[2][4][5][1] The word is common to all the Romance languages: Portuguese sebo, older sevo, Catalan sèu, French suif and Italian sevo, and the Mozarabic form was xebo.^{[2][6][7][8][9][1]}

The Latin word is attested from Plautus, too early for a loan from Germanic.^[10] Walde–Hofmann and Pokorny suggest a common source with the Germanic word for soap, and the LIV sets up a root meaning “to drip”.^[10] De Vaan objects that a /b/ is very rare in Proto-Indo-European and that the meanings do not clearly match, and leaves the word without an etymology.^[10] Wiktionary derives it from Proto-Indo-European *seyb- (“to pour out”), the source also of *saipǭ (“soap”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the Libro de Apolonio (c. 1240, in a copy of the mid-14th century), where ships are greased with tallow to make them faster: por seyer más ligeras, con sevo bien untadas.^[2][11]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Lapidario and other 13th-century texts use the word for the hard fat of animals and for fat in general.^[12] Covarrubias in 1611 listed its uses for candles, for softening leather and greasing cart axles and for coating ships, and explained the sailors' phrase mostrar el sebo: a galley that had escaped its pursuers turned and showed them its greased hull below the water, an insult like showing one's backside.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades added the figurative sense “wealth, plenty”.^[14]

The DLE now also uses the word for the fatty secretion of the skin glands and for body fat.^[5] In Argentina hacer sebo meant “to idle”, and in Cuba volver or hacer un sebo a alguien “to ruin, confound someone”.^[15] Young people in Venezuela use sebo for a love affair.^[16]

Timeline

• c. 1240 – the Libro de Apolonio, the DCECH's first record.^[2][11]
• 1250 – Abraham of Toledo's Moamín forbids giving hawks the fat of quadrupeds.^[11]
• c. 1250 – the Concilio de León spells it sebo.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija has sevo de animal patihendido, seboso and ensebar.^[2][17]
• 1534 – the first American record, for caulking a brigantine in Tierra Firme.^[18]
• 1599 – sebillo, in the Guzmán de Alfarache.^[2][4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains mostrar el sebo.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology, from Latin sebum.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. tallow, suet: the hard solid fat of some animals, melted to make candles and soap: Las velas de sebo humeaban y olían mal.^[5][1]
2. (physiology) sebum, the fatty matter secreted by glands of the skin.^[5][1]
3. Body fat (gordura); (colloquial) flab.^[5][1]
4. (colloquial) Greasy dirt.^[20]
5. (Venezuela, youth slang) A love affair.^[16]

Word family

• sebillo
• seboso
• ensebar
• sebera

Related words

• seborrea
• Latin sēbum
• Catalan sèu

Usage notes

Mostrar el sebo is now obsolete; it was a sailors' taunt for a ship that had escaped its pursuer.^[5][13]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 184
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. sebo
4. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sebo
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. sebo
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3037
7. ^ 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, 885
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. suif
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6005
10. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. sebo
12. ^ 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. sebo
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. 1290
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 58
15. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 75
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. sebo
17. ^ 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. sebo
18. ^ 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. sebo
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 962
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sebo