sierpe

Forms

sierpe f (plural sierpes)^[1] Old Spanish also wrote syerpe.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish sierpe, inherited from Latin serpēns (“snake, serpent”), from the nominative.^[4][1][5][2] In Vulgar Latin the nominative was pronounced *serpēs and taken for a feminine noun in ⟨-is⟩;^[6][7] Venantius Fortunatus writes serps.^[5][6][7] Its doublet serpiente comes from the oblique stem;^[1] Corominas takes it for semi-learned, since it was always a literary word, while the popular word for a snake was culebra.^[5][1]

The same form of the nominative gave Portuguese serpe, Galician serpe, Catalan serp, Occitan sèrp, Italian serpe and Romanian șarpe.^[6][5][1]

The Latin noun is the present participle of serpō (“to crawl, creep”), “the one that crawls”, a substitute for the older anguis (“snake”).^[8][9][5] The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *serp- (“to creep”), with cognates in Sanskrit सर्पति (sárpati, “to creep”), Ancient Greek ἕρπω (hérpō, “to creep, crawl”) and Albanian gjarpër (“snake”).^[8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Berceo's Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos (c. 1236, in a late 13th-century copy) tells how the Devil took the shape of a snake: Prendié forma de sierpe el traïdor provado “the proven traitor took the form of a serpent”.^[10][11][5] The Vida de San Millán also has the word, but survives only in an 18th-century copy.^[10] The DHLE's earlier date of about 1223, from the Semeiança del mundo, rests on a 15th-century manuscript.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The DHLE dates the figurative senses: the Devil about 1250 in the Poema de Fernán González, a cunning, malicious person before 1260 in a gospel translation, and a sucker growing from roots in the Bible of Alba of 1433.^[2] The sense “very ugly woman” is recorded from 1617.^[2] Autoridades adds an angry person and anything that winds like a snake, such as a stream, with Quevedo's “crystal serpents”.^[12] In thieves' cant it meant a picklock.^[13][12]

Corominas calls the word today antiquated or dialectal; it survives in the Calle de las Sierpes of Seville and in Asturian sierpe “kite”.^[5][14] Modern dictionaries mark it as formal or poetic.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1236 – Berceo, Vida de Santo Domingo de Silos.^[10][3]
• 1240–1272 – Herman the German's psalter has venino de sierpe; it is the earliest hit in the CDH without a later copy.^[10]
• c. 1250 – the Poema de Fernán González uses it for the Devil.^[2]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios speaks of death from a snake bite.^[16]
• 1433 – the Bible of Alba uses it for a sucker growing from roots.^[2]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia's Universal vocabulario is the first dictionary to record it.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: Sierpe o serpiente, Latin serpens.^[17]
• 1535 – Peru: iguanas are described as like sierpes.^[18]
• 1609 – Hidalgo's glossary of thieves' cant: sierpe “picklock”.^[13]
• 1617 – first record of the sense “very ugly woman”.^[2]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records the figurative senses.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy adds the botanical sense.^[19]

Meanings

Noun

1. A large snake, a serpent: Una sierpe dormía entre las rocas.^[4][1]
2. (figurative) A very ugly or fierce person, or one who is in a rage.^[4][1]
3. (figurative) Anything that moves in windings like a snake: El camino subía como una sierpe entre los olivos.^[4]
4. (botany) A sucker, a shoot growing from woody roots.^[4][1]
5. (rural Asturias) A kite, the toy.^[4][14]
6. (thieves' cant, obsolete) A picklock.^[13][20]

Related words

• serpiente
• serpentear
• serpear
• Latin serpēns
• Portuguese serpe

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. sierpe
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
4. ^ 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. sierpe
5. ^ 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, 227
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7855
7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ 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. sierpe
11. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra
12. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 109
13. ^ a b c Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. 199
14. ^ a b Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. sierpe
15. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. sierpe
16. ^ 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. sierpe
17. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 416
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. sierpe
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. 975
20. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 914