surco

Forms

surco m (plural surcos)^[1] Older and dialect forms are sulco (Old Spanish, Nebrija, Upper Aragon), suco (Galicia, Asturias, León), jurco (Burgos, Ávila, Soria) and suelco (Old Navarrese).^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish sulco, inherited from Latin sulcus (“furrow”).^[2][5][6][1] Corominas notes that the 1124 charter already has the modern form, although the manuscript should be checked;^[7] Oelschläger cites the older spelling with ⟨l⟩ in documents of 1188 and 1202, and a Toledo document of 1206 has it too.^[2]

Latin /u/ before an /l/ closing the syllable gave Spanish /u/, as in dulce.^[2] Popular speech tended to absorb the /l/ into the vowel, which gave suco, as duz beside the full form; where speakers resisted, they kept the consonant by turning it into /r/, as in urce.^[2]

The same Latin word is Galician suco, Portuguese sulco, Asturian suco, Catalan solc, Italian solco and Romanian sulc.^[2][7][3][1]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *solkos, from Proto-Indo-European *solk-o- (“furrow”), a noun of the root *selk- (“to pull, drag”).^[8][1] Its cognates are Ancient Greek ἕλκω (hélkō, “to draw, drag”) and ὁλκός (holkós, “trailing; furrow”), Albanian heq (“to draw”) and Old English sulh (“plough”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the earliest documents the word usually means the land inside the boundaries of a property, as in en sulco de followed by the owner's name;^[9] Corominas explains the sense, secondary but very old, by the use of a furrow to mark boundaries.^[2] The first hit in the CDH, an Oña document of 1279, has it so: el linar que es en somo de la nuestra serna en surco de do Yuannes de Medianilla “the flax field above our demesne land, bordering on Don Juan de Medianilla's”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The plain sense “furrow” is common from the 14th century, in Juan Manuel's Conde Lucanor (un sulco de coles “a furrow of cabbages”) and in the agricultural treatises translated from Palladius.^[9][10] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) gives the plough furrow, the trace left by anything that passes over another (the wake of a keel) and the wrinkles of the face.^[10] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 added the phrases a surco, of adjoining fields, and echarse en el surco “to give up”.^[11] The groove of a gramophone record joined the senses in the 20th century.^[12][6]

In Mexico and Colombia the word can name the ridge of earth beside the furrow, the opposite of the Spanish sense.^[13][14] In the Canary Islands surco de agua is a measure of irrigation water, recorded from 1852.^[15] The derivatives sulquero (1202) and Riojan surcaño keep the boundary sense: a neighbouring owner and a boundary.^[2]

Timeline

• 1084 – DEMel lists the form ssukko in a document of San Vicente de Oviedo.^[16]
• 1124 – a charter from northern Castile, the first record for Corominas.^[2][5]
• 1188 and 1202 – the spelling sulco in charters listed by Oelschläger.^[2]
• 1279 – an Oña document uses en surco de for a boundary.^[9]
• 1280 – Alfonso X's General estoria has the variant suclos.^[17]
• 1325–1335 – Juan Manuel's Conde Lucanor uses sulco and surco for a furrow of cabbages.^[9]
• 1495 – Nebrija writes sulco del arado with Latin sulcus.^[18]
• 1571 – the first records from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[19]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the furrow, the trace and the wrinkle.^[10]
• 1817 – the Academy's dictionary adds a surco and echarse en el surco.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A furrow made in the ground by the plough.^[6][1]
2. A long mark or groove left by something passing over a surface: Las ruedas dejaron dos surcos en el barro.^[6][20]
3. A deep wrinkle in the face or another part of the body.^[6][1]
4. The spiral groove of a gramophone record.^[6][1]
5. (anatomy) A sulcus, a linear depression or fissure.^[21][1]
6. (Mexico, Colombia, rural) The ridge of earth beside the furrow.^[13]
7. (Canary Islands) A measure of irrigation water.^[15]

Word family

• surcar
• asurcar

Related words

• Latin sulcus
• Catalan solc

Usage notes

A surco is said of two fields that adjoin or are separated only by a furrow, and echarse en el surco (colloquial) means to give up a task out of laziness or discouragement.^[6] The proverb buey viejo, surco derecho praises the steadiness of experience.^[1]

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 j Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 338
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. sulcus
4. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 400
5. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. surco
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. surco
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 191
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 822
12. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. surco
13. ^ 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. surco
14. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1959), Diccionario de mejicanismos, México: Porrúa, p. 268
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. surco
16. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
17. ^ 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. surco
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
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. surco
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. surco
21. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. surco