talón

Forms

talón m (plural talones)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish talon, inherited from Vulgar Latin *tālō (“heel”).^[2][1][3][4] The Vulgar Latin word is a derivative of Latin talus (“ankle, ankle bone; heel”), and is recorded only in a late gloss.^[3][2] The classical word itself left no Romance descendants.^[3]

The same Vulgar Latin word is Italian tallone, French talon, Occitan talon and Catalan taló.^[5] In Portuguese, talão is a loan from another Romance language, probably French, the popular word being calcanhar.^[5][3] In Catalan and French the word means the heel of a shoe as well as of the foot;^[6] Spanish uses tacón for that.^[3][6]

De Vaan reconstructs the Latin word as Proto-Italic *takslo-, if the diminutive taxillus (“a die”) is old, and finds the comparison with Welsh sawdl (“heel”) difficult.^[7] Gómez de Silva considers the Latin word probably Celtic.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest hit is Almerich's Fazienda de Ultra Mar, dated about 1200 in a 13th-century copy: the waters davan troal talon “came up to the heel”.^[9][10] Corominas had found no record before Nebrija, though he assumed the word was in use from the beginning of the language.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the word both for the human heel and for the heel of a horse's hoof, and the Libro de los caballos of about 1275 also uses it of horses.^[11][9] Autoridades quotes 16th-century authors for it, and it also recorded the rare sense “heel of a shoe”.^[3] Hidalgo's thieves' glossary of 1609 has it for going on foot, the modern colloquial a talón.^[12][2]

The commercial sense, a document cut from a counterfoil book so that it can be checked against the stub, is in Echegaray's dictionary of the 1880s and in Alemany's of 1917.^[13][14] Bénaben compares French talon for the stub of a book of cheques.^[6] From it came talonario “counterfoil book”, and in Spain talón also means a bank cheque.^[4][15][16] Technical senses name the frog of a violin bow, the bead of a tyre, an ogee moulding and parts of a ship's keel.^[2] In Guatemala a talón is a traffic fine.^[17]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (13th-century copy) has talon.^[9]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses it of the human heel and of a horse's hoof.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija, Corominas's first record.^[3][18]
• 1551 – first record in the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[19]
• 1609 – Hidalgo's glossary of thieves' cant records it for going on foot.^[12]
• 1887 – Echegaray records the commercial sense.^[13]
• 1917 – Alemany records the commercial sense and the phrase a talón.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The heel, the back part of the human foot.^[2][1]
2. The heel of a shoe or sock, the part that covers the heel.^[2][1]
3. The heel of a horse's hoof.^[2]
4. A slip or receipt torn from a book along its counterfoil; in Spain, a cheque.^[2][1][15]
5. The frog of a violin bow, and the back end of other objects.^[2]
6. The bead of a tyre.^[2]
7. (architecture) An ogee moulding; the lip of a roof tile.^[2]
8. (nautical) An oblique cut at the after end of the keel; the angle of heel of a ship.^[2]

Word family

• talonario
• talonear
• talonazo
• talonera

Related words

• talar
• Latin talus
• French talon

Usage notes

The DLE has two minor homographs: talón “inn, lodging” in thieves' cant, from the verb talar, and talón “monetary standard”, from French étalon.^[2] The monetary word was first admitted by the Academy in 1925, about 1900 according to the BDELC;^[20] Corominas takes French étalon in this sense to be Old French estelon (“stake, post”), which he relates to Catalan estaló (“prop”) and derives from Latin stolo (“shoot, sucker”).^[3][4][20] Set phrases include talón de Aquiles “Achilles' heel” and pisarle a alguien los talones “to be hard on someone's heels”.^[2][15]

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 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. talón
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 389
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. talón
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8544
6. ^ a b c Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. talón
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. talón
9. ^ 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. talón
10. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. talón
11. ^ 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. talón
12. ^ a b Hidalgo, Juan (1609), Romances de germanía de varios autores, con el vocabulario por la orden del a.b.c. para declaración de sus términos y lengua, Barcelona: Sebastián de Cormellas (ed. Madrid 1779), p. s.v. talón
13. ^ a b Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 438
14. ^ a b Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1555
15. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. talón
16. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. talón
17. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. talón
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. talón
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. talón
20. ^ a b 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. 3, 735