silo

Forms

silo m (plural silos)^[1]

Etymology

Corominas calls it a word peculiar to Castilian, of uncertain origin but surely pre-Roman, related to Basque zilo and zulo (“hole”), with the original sense “cave for storing grain”.^[2] He thinks its ultimate source is probably from Proto-Celtic *silon (“seed”), which, used collectively for a mass of grain, would have come to name the pit where the grain was kept.^[2][3] The Celtic word is behind Old Irish síl (“seed”) and Welsh hil (“offspring”).^[2] In this view the Basque word took the sense from the underground silo and widened it to any hole.^[3][2] The Academy gives the origin as unknown.^[4]

The older etymology, from Covarrubias and Autoridades to the Academy's dictionary of 1884 and the REW, derives it from Latin sirus (“underground granary”), from Ancient Greek σιρός (sirós, “pit for keeping grain”).^[5][6][7][2] García de Diego and Gómez de Silva keep it, and Wiktionary gives it as a possibility beside the Basque one.^[8][9][1] Corominas rejects it: a change of /r/ to /l/ is not regular in Spanish, the Greek word was itself a foreign term for the pits of the Thracians and Cappadocians, and Varro and Curtius, the only Latin authors to mention it, refer it to those peoples.^[2] Beekes treats the Greek word as a technical word without an etymology, probably Pre-Greek.^[10]

The word belongs to Castilian alone, the neighbouring languages using Catalan sitja and Portuguese tulha instead, and a single sil is a Hispanism in a poem on a Spanish subject.^[2] The place name Silos in Burgos shows how old it is in the area.^[2] In modern times it spread to French silo (1775), Italian silo, Portuguese silo and English, which has it from 1835.^[2][11]

Earliest recorded meaning

A document written at Toro about 1050 lists among goods uno silo pleno de cevata, pane et vino “a silo full of barley, bread and wine”.^[2][3] A Latin charter of 1156 records the gift of a silum at the corner of a house to Santo Domingo de la Calzada.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish a silo was a closed underground store for grain, but also any pit or cave, and a dungeon: in the Calila e Dimna (1251) an ox falls into a silo and dies of it, and Berceo has a prisoner lying en fondo silo “in a deep pit”.^[2][12] The Fuero Real (1255) forbids leaving an opened silo or well uncovered on a road.^[12][6] The classics used it for the belly, and Hernán Núñez's proverbs include abril frío hinche el silo “a cold April fills the silo”.^[2]

Covarrubias described it as a dry underground place for keeping wheat, and Autoridades added any deep dark underground place and, by likeness, a man who drinks a great deal of water.^[5][6] The 2001 edition of the Academy's dictionary noted that silos are now also built above ground, and the current one adds the underground launch site of missiles.^[13][4] In Chile the word also names pressed fodder kept for cattle, and in Puerto Rico a tank for refined sugar.^[14][15][16]

Timeline

• 978 – a charter of Covarrubias has silo, DEMel's earliest primary record.^[17]
• c. 1050 – the Toro document, the DCECH's first record.^[2][3]
• 1251 – the Calila e Dimna uses it for a pit an ox falls into.^[2][12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses silo para guardar trigo with Latin syrius.^[18]
• 1533 – first record in the Americas, in Cuzco.^[19]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin syrus.^[5]
• 1775 – French takes the word from Spanish.^[2]
• 1835 – English silo, from Spanish.^[2][11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A silo: a dry place, often underground, where wheat or other grain, seed or fodder is stored: Llenaron los silos tras la cosecha.^[4][20][1]
2. A deep, dark underground place.^[4][6]
3. (military) An underground store or launch site for missiles.^[4][20]
4. (Chile) Pressed fodder kept to feed cattle; silage.^[14][15]

Word family

• ensilar

Related words

• Basque zulo
• French silo

References

1. ^ a b c d Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 247
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. silo
4. ^ a b c d e 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. silo
5. ^ 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. 1299
6. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 115
7. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 977
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6164
9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 646
10. ^ 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
11. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
12. ^ 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. silo
13. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. silo
14. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 740
15. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 86
16. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. silo
17. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. silo
18. ^ 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. silo
19. ^ 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. silo
20. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. silo