sentina

Forms

sentina f (plural sentinas)^[1] The spelling centina or çentina is common in the 14th and 15th centuries;^[2][3] Corominas suggests that the ⟨c⟩ may point to Andalusian speech or to a loan from Catalan or Portuguese.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin sentīna (“bilge-water; bilge of a ship; dregs”).^[2][4][5][1] The Diccionario de Autoridades called it a purely Latin word.^[6] The same word is Catalan sentina, recorded from the end of the 13th century, Portuguese sentina, Italian sentina and Old French sentine, which meant “stench” in 1213.^[7][8][2][1]

De Vaan connects the Latin noun with Proto-Indo-European *semH- (“to scoop”), the root of verbs for pouring out or scooping in Celtic and Baltic, but notes that with no other cognate in Latin this remains a root etymology.^[9] The OLD compares Ancient Greek ἄντλος (ántlos, “bilgewater”) with a “perhaps”.^[10] Covarrubias derived the word from sentir, because the bilge makes itself felt by its smell; the Diccionario de Autoridades reports instead the sailors' view that in it one feels whether the ship is taking water.^[11][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in an early 15th-century copy) uses it for a foul place: non querié luengamente morar en la sentina, ca era toda llena de mala calabrina “she did not want to stay long in the sentina, for it was all full of foul stench”.^[3][12] Corominas's first record, of the second quarter of the 15th century, is centina in Díaz de Gámez, in the sense of a ship's cabin.^[2][4]

Semantic evolution

Juan Fernández de Heredia, at the end of the 14th century, uses centina for the bottom of a ship where the leaking water gathers, and 15th-century poems speak of the çentina of hell, where sulphur and resin burn the damned.^[3] Nebrija has sentina de nave and agua de sentina.^[13] Covarrubias already used sentina de pecados for a mass of abominable sins, and the Diccionario de Autoridades gave three senses: the ship's bilge, any filthy and foul-smelling place, and a place where sins are committed or that causes vice.^[11][6] Domínguez records the sailors' joke caer en la sentina, said of a man who cannot be found on board.^[14] In Chile the word is used for the oily residues of hydrocarbons kept in special containers.^[15]

Timeline

• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre, the first record.^[3][12]
• 1376–1396 – Fernández de Heredia's Libro de actoridades writes centina for a ship's bilge.^[3]
• 1425–1450 – Díaz de Gámez, the DCECH's first record.^[2][4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija has sentina de nave.^[13][2]
• 1591 – Percyvall translates it as “a sinke, a pumpe in a ship”.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records sentina de pecados.^[11]
• 1899 – the Academy derives it from Latin sentina.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A place full of filth and foul smell: Aquel callejón era una sentina de basura y ratas.^[5][18][1]
2. (figurative) A place where vices abound or from which they spread, a sink of iniquity.^[5][18]
3. (nautical) The bilge: the lowest part of a ship's hull, above the keel, where water leaking in through the sides and deck collects before it is pumped out.^[5][1]
4. (Chile) The oily residues of hydrocarbons stored in special containers.^[15]

Related words

• Latin sentīna
• Catalan sentina

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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, 208
3. ^ a b c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. sentina
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sentina
5. ^ 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. sentina
6. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 83
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, 802
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3061
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ 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. 1293
12. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. sentina
13. ^ a b 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. sentina
14. ^ Domínguez, Ramón Joaquín (1846–1847), Diccionario nacional o gran diccionario clásico de la lengua española, 2 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Léxico-Tipográfico de R. J. Domínguez, p. 2, 1558
15. ^ 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. sentina
16. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 213
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 908
18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sentina