sierra

Forms

sierra f (plural sierras)^[1] Old Spanish texts also write serra and syerra.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin serra (“saw”).^[4][5][6][1] The sense “range of mountains” is a comparison with the toothed outline of the ridges, as Covarrubias already explained.^[4][5][7] Corominas notes that this use is found all over the south of the Romance area, in Aromanian, Friulian, northern Italian, Sardinian, Occitan and the whole Iberian Peninsula, and that Polybius twice used Greek πρίων (príōn, “saw”) for a rugged ridge, perhaps after a Numidian or Punic expression; he rejects Gröhler's idea of a pre-Roman or Ligurian word.^[4] Medieval Latin serra also meant “mountain ridge”.^[8] Covarrubias reports Guadix's view that the word was Arabic for “desert”.^[7]

The same Latin word is Portuguese serra, Galician serra, Catalan serra, Occitan sèrra and Italian serra, and Basque has zerra.^[9][10]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain.^[11][12] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *sersā- (“saw”) and Proto-Indo-European *sers-h₂- (“cutting off”), and sees the best connection within Latin in sāriō (“to hoe, weed”).^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH finds the sense “range of mountains” in charters of the 10th and 11th centuries, and the DTME dates it to 931.^[4][14] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, known from a 14th-century copy) the Cid's men camp a la sierra de Miedes, and the Guadarrama is la sierra que las otras tierras parte “the range that divides the lands”.^[3][15][4] The tool is first recorded in Alfonso X's Lapidario (1250–1279), where a silver sierra o escopro “saw or chisel” is used to work a stone.^[16]

Semantic evolution

Corominas finds the tool sense in dictionaries only from Alfonso de Palencia (1490), though it surely existed from the beginnings of the language.^[4][5] The Diccionario de Autoridades described both the toothed saw for wood and the toothless steel blade used with water and sand to cut stone, and the range of mountains or broken rocks.^[17] The name of the sawfish, pez sierra, is also old and goes back to Latin.^[4]

In the Americas the word names a mackerel-like sea fish of Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru.^[18] In the Canaries a sierra is a long heap of grain or harvested crop on the threshing floor.^[19] In the old thieves' cant it meant “face”.^[20] English borrowed sierra “range of jagged mountains” in the 1610s.^[12]

Timeline

• 931 – a charter with the sense “range of mountains”.^[14]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy): la sierra de Miedes.^[3][4]
• 1250–1279 – the tool in Alfonso X's Lapidario.^[16]
• 1254 – sierras altas “high ranges” in Alfonso X's prose.^[16]
• 1490 – Alfonso de Palencia defines the tool.^[4][5]
• 1532 – first records in the Americas, in Mexico.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias compares the rocky land to the teeth of the tool.^[7]
• 1610s – English borrows sierra.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin serra.^[22]

Meanings

Noun

1. A saw: a tool for cutting wood, stone or other hard materials, usually a toothed steel blade fixed to a handle or frame.^[6][1]
2. A place where sawing is done; a sawmill.^[6]
3. Part of a mountain range (cordillera).^[6]
4. A range of mountains with jagged peaks or rocks: Pasamos el verano en la sierra.^[6][1]
5. The sawfish.^[6][1]
6. (Mexico, Puerto Rico, Venezuela) An edible sea fish of the mackerel family, about a metre long, without scales.^[6][18]

Word family

• serrano
• serrezuela
• serreta
• serrón
• serrucho
• motosierra
• serranía
• serranilla

Related words

• aserradero
• aserrín
• serrino
• serrar
• serrín
• Latin serra
• English sierra

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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. sierra
3. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. sierra
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 242
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sierra
6. ^ a b c d e f g 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. sierra
7. ^ 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. 1298
8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 7861
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6083
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ a b c Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
13. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
14. ^ a b Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. sierra
15. ^ Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 446
16. ^ 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. sierra
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 109
18. ^ 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. sierra
19. ^ Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. sierra
20. ^ 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
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. sierra
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