sidra

Forms

sidra f (plural sidras)^[1] Old Spanish forms include sizra, sidra, sydra, cidra, çidra and çisrra.^[2][3] Asturian has a feminine sidre.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish sizra, through an unrecorded *sizdra, inherited from Late Latin sicera (“an intoxicating drink of the Hebrews; any alcoholic drink made from fruit or grain”).^[3][4][5] Corominas explains the ⟨d⟩ as a consonant that grew between the sibilant and the /r/, as in medrar from mejorar; the forms with c- come from assimilation or metathesis.^[3] Its Basque counterpart zizar, closer to the Latin, shows how old the word is in Spain.^[4]

Gonçalves Viana and Meyer-Lübke held that only the form in -zra was native and that the forms in -dra were borrowed from French cidre, and Wiktionary derives the word from sidre.^[3][6][1] Corominas finds this unlikely, given how early the form in -dra appears, and unnecessary, but admits that it cannot be ruled out until the history of the drink in Spain and France has been studied.^[3] Portuguese sidra and Catalan sidra were taken from Spanish.^[7][8] Isidore of Seville already describes a popular drink of this name, made from the juice of grain or apples, in Visigothic Spain.^[3][9]

The Latin word, a term of Christian Latin and of the Vulgate, is from Ancient Greek σίκερα (síkera, “fermented liquor, strong drink”), the Septuagint's rendering of Biblical Hebrew שֵׁכָר (šēḵār).^[1][10][11] Beekes too takes the Greek word from Semitic.^[12] The DLE and Corriente trace it instead to Egyptian ṯkr, and Corriente holds that the Hebrew word is itself from Egyptian and not the source of the Latin and Greek.^[13][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), in the angel's command to the mother of Samson: non bevras vino nin sizra “you shall drink neither wine nor strong drink”.^[15] Corominas gives Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo (c. 1236): Saint John the Baptist abrenunció el vino, sizra, carne e pez “renounced wine, cider, meat and fish”.^[3][15] The biblical texts mean the drink of the ancient Hebrews;^[3] Corominas thinks that the fueros, Berceo and the Partidas already refer to a drink like the modern Asturian one.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's General estoria (1272–1275) has sidra among the liquids measured by the hin and the bath, beside wine, milk and honey, and the Partidas warn that cider and wine cloud the mind.^[16][3] Don Juan Manuel (1334–1340) speaks expressly of sidra de maçanas “apple cider”.^[15] Covarrubias in 1611 and Autoridades in 1739 define it as a drink made from apple juice, and both relate it to the Hebrew sicera, any intoxicating drink.^[17][18] Terreros described its making in Biscay and the Cantabrian mountains, where the crushed apples were pressed in a press called the “mill”.^[19] Since 1899 the Academy has defined it as an amber-coloured alcoholic drink made by fermenting apple juice.^[20][13]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – sizra in La fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy).^[15]
• c. 1236 – sizra in Berceo, the first record for Corominas, who dates the form 1220–1250.^[3][4][15]
• c. 1260 – sidra in the Siete Partidas.^[4][3]
• 1272–1275 – sidra in Alfonso X's General estoria.^[16]
• 1334–1340 – Don Juan Manuel writes of sidra de maçanas.^[15]
• 1548 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo, which compares a local drink with the apple cider of Biscay.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as a drink of apple juice.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin sicera and Greek.^[22]

Meanings

Noun

1. cider: an amber-coloured, slightly alcoholic drink made by fermenting the juice of apples (manzana): En la sidrería nos sirvieron la sidra escanciada desde lo alto.^[13][1][23]

Word family

• sidrería

Related words

• French cidre
• Basque zizar
• Latin sicera

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. sidra
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 240
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sidra
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 644
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7898
7. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. sidra
8. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. sidra
9. ^ du Cange, Charles du Fresne, et al. (1883–1887), Glossarium mediae et infimae latinitatis, augmented ed. by Léopold Favre, Niort: L. Favre, p. s.v. sicera
10. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. sicera
11. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. σίκερα
12. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. σίκερα
13. ^ a b c 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. sidra
14. ^ Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 439
15. ^ 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. sidra
16. ^ a b 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. sidra
17. ^ 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. 1297
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 108
19. ^ 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, 486
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 914
21. ^ 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. sidra
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 975
23. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. sidra