seno

Forms

seno m (plural senos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sinus (“curve, hollow, fold; the fold of the toga; bosom”).^[2][3][4][1] The same Latin word is Portuguese seio, Galician seo, Asturian senu, Catalan si, French sein, Italian seno and Romanian sân;^[5][6][1] Old Galician-Portuguese had seo.^[5][6][1]

De Vaan connects the Latin noun with Albanian gji (“breast”); if so, Sanskrit सानु (sā́nu, “back”) cannot be a cognate, and there is no further etymology.^[7] Wiktionary traces it to *sinos.^[1]

The geometrical sense “sine” goes back to Medieval Latin: in the 12th century Gerard of Cremona used the Latin word for Arabic جيب (jayb, “bosom, fold in a garment”), which he confused with the trigonometrical term “chord, sine”, itself from Sanskrit ज्या (jyā, “bowstring”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a Mozarabic kharja handed down by a poet of the 11th or 12th century, then Berceo, in the Martirio de San Lorenzo: Non tenié sanna vieja en seno condesada, “he kept no old grudge stored away in his breast”.^[2][3] The Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) has God's words to Moses Mete to mano en to seno, “put your hand into your bosom”: the space between the garment and the chest.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Old Spanish already had most of the modern senses.^[2] Alfonso X's prose uses it for the space between the clothing and the breast, for shelter and protection (el seno dela santa madre eglesia), for the inside of something, and for an arm of the sea.^[9] Nebrija gave seno de vestidura as Latin sinus.^[2] Autoridades (1739) defines it first as the part of the body between the bends of the arms, usually called the chest, then as the lap and the mother's womb.^[10] The Academy's 1843 edition adds the sine of trigonometry, the seno de Abrahan and the slack curve of a sail or rope.^[11]

Corominas calls the use of senos for “breasts” a crude Gallicism, not rare in the 19th century and widespread in America.^[2] In 1855 Baralt already warned against using seno wherever French has sein.^[12] The DLE now lists “breast” as a sense.^[4] In Honduras the word means the armpit.^[13]

Timeline

• 11th or 12th century – a Mozarabic kharja, Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar, in a 13th-century copy, has Mete to mano en to seno.^[8]
• 13th century – Berceo uses it for the breast as the seat of feelings.^[2]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario: the space between garment and breast.^[9]
• 1270–1284 – the Estoria de España uses it of an arm of the sea.^[9]
• 1495 – first record of the derivative ensenar “to put in the bosom”.^[3]
• 1502 – first record of ensenada “cove”.^[3][2]
• 1739 – Autoridades defines it as the chest, the lap and the womb.^[10]
• 1843 – the Academy's dictionary records the trigonometrical sense.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hollow or cavity.^[4]
2. The concave curve formed by something bent.^[4]
3. A woman's breast.^[4][1]
4. The space between the clothes and the chest: Escondió las monedas en el seno.^[4]
5. The womb.^[4]
6. The inner part or heart of something: Hubo discrepancias en el seno del comité.^[4][14]
7. A gulf or bay between two headlands.^[4][1]
8. (figurative) A lap, refuge or shelter.^[4]
9. (anatomy) A sinus, a cavity in a bone or between several bones.^[4][1]
10. (architecture) A spandrel, the space between the extradoses of adjoining arches or vaults.^[4]
11. (geometry) sine.^[4][1]
12. (nautical) The slack curve of a sail or rope; the trough of a wave.^[4][1]
13. (medicine) A small cavity in a wound or ulcer.^[4]

Word family

• coseno
• ensenar
• ensenada

Related words

• sen
• sinuoso
• insinuar
• sinusitis
• Latin sinus
• Portuguese seio

Usage notes

Seno de Abraham names, in Christian and Jewish teaching, the place where the souls of the righteous of the Old Testament awaited redemption.^[4][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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, 205
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. seno
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p 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. seno
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. sinus
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 6158
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ 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. seno
9. ^ a b c 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. seno
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 79
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 662
12. ^ Baralt, Rafael María (1855), Diccionario de galicismos, Madrid: Imprenta de J. Cruzado, p. s.v. seno
13. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. seno
14. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. seno