tábano

Forms

tábano m (plural tábanos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish távano, inherited from Latin tabānus (“gadfly, horsefly”).^[2][3][1][4]

Latin texts give no evidence for the stress or the length of the vowel of the second syllable.^[2] Spanish stresses the first syllable, as do Catalan tàvec (or tave) and Occitan tauna “wasp”, while Italian tafano, Portuguese tavão and Catalan dialectal tavà point to stress on the second;^[1] Corominas holds that the Spanish stress is old, and links the double stress to the word's foreign origin.^[2][5][1] Further cognates are Galician tabán, Asturian tabán and Romanian tăun.^[6][7][1] French taon goes back to Late Latin tabō (“gadfly”), with another suffix, which is recorded in a Carolingian poem.^[8]

The Latin word is recorded from Varro on.^[9][8] Corominas considers it a loan into Latin from a non-Indo-European language, and the same form occurs in Etruscan personal names, but its source is unknown.^[2][8][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Abraham de Toledo's Moamín (1250, in a copy of the second half of the century), a book on hunting animals, advises: E si les mordieren táuanos, destéllenles en las mordeduras agua calient “and if gadflies bite them, drip hot water on the bites”.^[4] The Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in an early 15th-century copy) names them among the signs of the season: los távanos que muerden non son aún venidos “the biting gadflies have not yet come”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept its sense from the 13th century to today;^[10][4] Alfonso X's Lapidario names gadflies with spiders and wasps among the less venomous creatures.^[10][4] The figurative sense of a tiresome, pestering person is colloquial.^[3][11]

Corominas takes tabarro (end of the 14th century) as a variant of the word.^[2] From it comes tabarra “nuisance” (19th century).^[2][2] In Cuba tábano also names a wild mallow whose stems served as toothbrushes.^[12][13] DAMER records a Nicaraguan sense, a pushy debt collector, and a Colombian one, an electric prod for driving cattle on board.^[14]

Timeline

• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre (early 15th-century copy) has távanos.^[4]
• 1250 – Abraham de Toledo's Moamín (13th-century copy) prescribes hot water for gadfly bites.^[4]
• c. 1250 – Corominas's date of first record.^[2]
• 1293 – the Castigos, the first record in a contemporary manuscript.^[4]
• 1495 – Nebrija gives tavano with Latin tabanus and asilus.^[15]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[16]
• 1875 – Pichardo records the Cuban plant name.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin tabanus.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) A horsefly or gadfly, a large fly whose female gives painful bites.^[3][1]
2. (colloquial) A tiresome, pestering person: No seas tábano y déjame trabajar.^[3][18]
3. (Cuba) A wild mallow (Pavonia typhalea).^[11][12]
4. (Nicaragua) A pushy debt collector.^[14]
5. (Colombia) An electric prod used to drive cattle on board ship.^[14]

Word family

• tabarro
• tabarra

Related words

• Latin tabānus
• Portuguese tavão

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tábano
3. ^ a b c d 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. tábano
4. ^ 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
5. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 8, 358
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6518
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
8. ^ a b c Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ a b 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. tábano
11. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tábano
12. ^ a b c Pichardo, Esteban (1875), Diccionario provincial casi-razonado de vozes y frases cubanas, 4th ed., La Habana: Imprenta El Trabajo, p. 341
13. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1549
14. ^ 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. tábano
15. ^ 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
16. ^ 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. tábano
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 938
18. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. tábano