tabaco

Forms

tabaco m (plural tabacos)^[1]

Etymology

The plant and the habit of smoking it come from the Americas, but the origin of the name is disputed.^[2][3] Corominas, followed by the DLE, holds that it is borrowed from Arabic طُبَّاق (ṭubbāq), the name of the sticky fleabane (Inula viscosa), of the hemp agrimony and of other medicinal herbs, some of which made people dizzy or drowsy.^[2][4][5] Forms of this word, such as tabacco and atabaca, were used in Italy and Spain long before the voyages of Columbus, from about 1410 on;^[1][6] Corominas thinks the Spaniards gave this European name to the American plant because the natives became intoxicated with it.^[2][3] He argues that nothing in its sound marks it as Taíno, that specialists in Taíno do not list it, that Monardes in 1571 already said the name was the Spaniards' and not the natives', and that the variant tabaque fits an Arabic origin better.^[2] Corriente, Pereira and Vicente accept this as a transfer of plant names.^[7]

Most Americanists, on the other hand, take it from the Island Arawak dialects of Haiti and Cuba: Friederici holds that there is no doubt of this, from Taíno a Taíno word, and Wiktionary gives it as a possible origin, beside Kari'na.^[8][1][6] The two chroniclers disagreed on its meaning: for Las Casas it was the roll of dried leaves that the islanders smoked, for Fernández de Oviedo the tube through which they took the smoke.^[2][8] Etymonline says that scholars of Caribbean languages prefer Las Casas's explanation.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record in the CDH is an instruction to the Jeronymite friars of 1517, from Puerto Rico, which complains that the natives, once out of the Spaniards' company, return to their customs, tomando tabacos e yervas, “taking tobacco and herbs”.^[10] Corominas dates it from Fernández de Oviedo, 1535.^[2][3] Columbus had described the habit of smoking in Cuba on 6 November 1492 without naming it.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the early chronicles tabaco is the roll of leaves, the smoke or the tube used to take it;^[11] Oviedo himself also speaks of “a herb that they call tabaco”.^[2] Monardes (1574) wrote that the native name was picietl and that tabaco had been given by the Spaniards, after an island of that name.^[11] From Spanish the name spread to French (tabaco 1555, tabac 1599), Italian (about 1550) and English (1577).^[2] Etymonline dates English tobacco to the 1580s.^[9]

Autoridades described it as a plant of the Indies taken as snuff and smoked in pipes and cigars.^[12] In Cuba a tabaquería is where tobacco is rolled, not where it is sold.^[2] Today it is also a cigar, the habit of smoking, a disease of trees and a brown colour; in Ecuador it means a cigarette, and in Puerto Rico slang marijuana.^[4][13]

Timeline

• c. 1410 – Italian tabacco and related forms name a European medicinal plant.^[3][2]
• 1492 – Columbus describes the natives of Cuba smoking, without naming the plant.^[2]
• 1517 – first record, in an instruction to the Jeronymite friars in Puerto Rico.^[10]
• 1535 – Fernández de Oviedo calls it a word of Hispaniola, for the smoking tube.^[2]
• c. 1540 – the conquerors of the Cauca valley write tabaque.^[2]
• c. 1552 – Las Casas says the islanders called their rolls of leaves tabacos.^[2][8]
• 1571 – Monardes says the name was given by the Spaniards.^[2]
• 1577 – the name reaches England.^[2]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades describes the plant of the Indies.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) The tobacco plant (Nicotiana tabacum), of the nightshade family (solanáceas), native to the Americas, with large sticky leaves and a strong smell.^[4][1]
2. Tobacco, the product made from its cured leaves, usually smoked.^[4][1]
3. A cigar (cigarro) of rolled tobacco leaves, without paper: Encendió un tabaco después de la cena.^[4]
4. The habit of smoking: Quiere dejar el tabaco este año.^[4]
5. A disease of some trees in which the inside of the trunk rots to a reddish-brown or black powder.^[4]
6. (Ecuador) A cigarette (cigarrillo).^[4][13]
7. A brown like that of cured tobacco leaves.^[4]

Adjective

1. Tobacco-coloured: una chaqueta tabaco.^[4]

Word family

• tabacal
• tabaquero
• atabacado
• tabaquismo
• tabaquera
• tabaquería
• tabacalero

Related words

• atabaca
• cigarro
• English tobacco
• French tabac

References

1. ^ a b c d e f 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, 351
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tabaco
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. tabaco
5. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tabaco
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. tabaco
7. ^ 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. tabac
8. ^ a b c Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 577
9. ^ a b Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. tabaco
11. ^ a b Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. tabaco
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 201
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. tabaco