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sorbete

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word sorbete

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
1597–1645 Francisco de Quevedo, Poesías More words from the 16th century
Borrowed from
Italian sorbetto
Ultimate origin
Italian sorbetto

Pronunciation

  • /soɾˈbete/, [soɾˈβ̞e.t̪e][1]

Forms

sorbete m (plural sorbetes)[1] Sorbeto is a variant in parts of the Americas.[2][1] Gracián spelled it sorvete in 1657.[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian sorbetto, which is from Turkish şerbet, from Arabic شربة (šarba, “a draught, a drink”).[4][5][6][7] The DLE and Nocentini add that the Italian form was influenced by sorbire (“to sip”).[4][7] Corominas dates the Italian word about 1550 and the Turkish one 1540, and notes that the Arabic word is of the same root as jarabe.[5][8] Gómez de Silva and Wiktionary place Persian شربت (šarbat) between the Turkish and the Arabic word, which comes from شرب (šariba, “to drink”).[9][1]

Wiktionary derives the Spanish word from French sorbet instead, but the DLE, Corominas, Corriente and Nocentini name Italian, and the French word was itself taken from Italian in 1544.[1][4][5][10] The same Italian word gives Portuguese sorvete, Galician sorbete and Catalan sorbet, while English sherbet and German Scherbet come directly from Turkish.[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest certain record in the CDH is a poem of Quevedo (1597–1645) that calls a drunken fly mosco irlandés del sorbete, y del vino mariposa “Irish gnat of the sherbet and butterfly of the wine”.[3] Corominas dates the word to the middle of the 17th century, and in 1657 Gracián names the sorvete beside chocolate and tea as a fashionable drink.[5][3] The CDH's hit of 1549, sorbete esse hueuo in a book of proverbs, is the verb sorber with a pronoun, “suck up that egg”.[3][11]

Semantic evolution

In 1727–1728 Torres Villarroel lists sorbetes among the new refreshments that had replaced the old ones at wedding visits.[3] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) defines it as a confection of fruit juice and sugar boiled hard so that it keeps, which dissolved in water makes a pleasant drink when the fruit is out of season.[11] Terreros describes a drink of lemon juice and sugar.[12]

The frozen dessert appears in the Academy's dictionary of 1843, which describes it as served iced until it forms a peak in the glass.[13] The 1884 edition gave the fuller definition the DLE still uses, with milk or egg yolks and a pasty degree of freezing, and gave an Arabic etymology.[14][15] Alemany's dictionary of 1917 adds the Mexican sense “top hat”, recorded in Mexico from 1906.[16][17][18]

In parts of the Americas it means a drinking straw (Puerto Rico and Uruguay by 1946; today Ecuador, Peru, Argentina and Uruguay), sweetened fruit juice in Colombia, and ice cream in El Salvador and the Philippines; in El Salvador it is also a colloquial adjective for a person who is hard of hearing.[19][2][20][1]

Timeline

  • 1597–1645 – a poem of Quevedo mentions the sorbete beside wine.[3]
  • c. 1650 – Corominas's date for the word.[5]
  • 1657 – Gracián names the sorvete with chocolate and tea.[3]
  • 1692 – two jars of sorbete are sent to a convent festivity in Madrid.[3]
  • 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as a fruit preserve for drinks.[11]
  • 1843 – the Academy's dictionary describes it as an iced confection.[13]
  • 1874 – the first record from the Americas, in Peru.[17]
  • 1906 – the sense “top hat” in Mexico.[17]
  • 1946 – Malaret records the sense “drinking straw” in Puerto Rico and Uruguay.[19]

Meanings

Noun

  1. sorbet: a refreshment of fruit juice and sugar, or of sweetened and flavoured water, milk or egg yolks, served half frozen: De postre pedimos un sorbete de mandarina.[4][21][1]
  2. (El Salvador, Philippines) Ice cream (helado).[1]
  3. (Colombia) Sweetened fruit juice, drunk plain or iced.[20]
  4. (Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Uruguay, Puerto Rico) A drinking straw; also sorbeto.[2][20][19][1]
  5. (Mexico, dated) A top hat.[19][18][16]

Adjective

  1. (El Salvador, colloquial) Hard of hearing, deaf.[1]

Usage notes

Quedarse or estar hecho un sorbete means “to be frozen stiff”, and valer sorbete in El Salvador and Mexico means “to be worthless”.[4][20] Wiktionary derives the sense “drinking straw” separately, from sorber with the suffix -ete.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. sorbete
  3. ^ a b c d e f g h Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. sorbete
  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. sorbete
  5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sorbete
  6. ^ a b Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. sorbete
  7. ^ a b c Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier
  8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 498
  9. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 656
  10. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
  11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 158
  12. ^ 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, 530
  13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 677
  14. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 990
  15. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 928
  16. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1534
  17. ^ a b c 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. sorbete
  18. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 100
  19. ^ a b c d Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 748
  20. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. sorbete
  21. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. sorbete

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Sorbete.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/sorbete. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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