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tapa

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word tapa

Confidence
Probable
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1400 Glosario de Toledo More words from the 14th century
Borrowed from
Gothic *tappa via Old Spanish
Ultimate origin
Gothic *tappa

Pronunciation

  • /ˈtapa/, [ˈt̪a.pa][1]

Forms

tapa f (plural tapas)[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish tapa, probably of Germanic origin, perhaps borrowed from Gothic *tappa.[2][3][4][1] Corominas compares Old High German zapho, German Zapfen (“plug, peg, tap, cone”), Old English tæppa and English tap.[2] Wiktionary and Köbler set up Proto-Germanic *tappô (“plug, tap”), whose further origin is unknown.[1][5]

The word has the same form in Catalan tapa;[6] Galician and Portuguese have tampa, a form also heard in the Spanish of Galicia and León.[2][6] The verb is more widespread: Portuguese tapar, Catalan tapar, Occitan tapar and Italian tappare, and Old Spanish used atapar from about 1290, long before tapar in 1570.[2][3] Corominas therefore leaves open whether the noun is the source of the verb or a noun formed from it; since the Germanic word is found only in West Germanic and not in Norse, a Gothic form is doubtful, and he does not wholly rule out Sainéan's view that the Romance family is an imitative creation.[2] tapón is probably a separate loan from French, from Frankish *tappo.[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Glosario de Toledo, about 1400, translates Latin taxillus “peg, plug” with tapa de cuba, the plug of a cask.[2][3] In Ruy González de Clavijo's account of Tamerlane (c. 1406) the lid of a small gold chest is la tapa de ençima.[7]

Semantic evolution

Corominas finds no other medieval records, though the word is missing from Palencia, Nebrija and Covarrubias by chance, he believes, as it was always in use.[2] Autoridades (1739) defined it as the top part that closes boxes, chests and vessels, joined to them by hinges or screws, quoting Cervantes's arca grande sin tapa, and added the hard outer shell of a horse's hoof, a layer of a shoe heel and the phrase tapa de los sesos, the top of the skull.[8] Salvá added the covers of a bound book, which the Academy took in 1884, together with the Philippine sense of dried salted meat.[9][10][11]

In Andalusia a tapa was a slice of ham, bacon or sausage served in taverns on top of a glass of wine, and then any small snack served with a drink;[12][13] Bénaben explains the sense by this slice covering the glass like a lid.[12][13] In the Americas the word names a bottle cap (from Nicaragua to Paraguay), the dough for empanadas (the River Plate) and the shirt front (Chile, Puerto Rico), and in Cuba once the fly of trousers.[14][15][16] Wiktionary lists English tapa as borrowed from it.[1]

Timeline

  • c. 1400 – tapa de cuba “plug of a cask” in the Glosario de Toledo.[2][3]
  • c. 1406 – the lid of a small chest in Clavijo's Historia del gran Tamorlán.[7]
  • 1496 – Juan del Encina mentions a vihuela with neither tapa nor peg.[7]
  • 1643 – the first record from the Americas, boxes unas con tapas y otras sin ellas in Nueva Vizcaya.[17]
  • 1739 – Autoridades has the lid, the hoof, the shoe heel and tapa de los sesos.[8]
  • 1846 – Salvá adds the covers of a book.[9]
  • 1884 – the Academy adds book covers and the Philippine dried meat.[10][11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A lid or cap: the piece that closes a box or container at the top: Ponle la tapa a la olla.[4][1]
  2. The horny outer covering of a horse's hoof.[4]
  3. Each layer of sole in a shoe, especially the one that touches the ground; a heel tip.[4][1]
  4. Each of the two covers of a bound book: una edición en tapa dura.[4][1]
  5. The sluice gate of a dam.[4][1]
  6. A cut of veal or beef from the middle of the hind leg; topside.[4][1]
  7. The turn-up covering the collar between the lapels of a jacket or coat.[4]
  8. A tapa: a small portion of food served with a drink: Con cada caña nos pusieron una tapa de tortilla.[4][1]
  9. (Costa Rica) The very best.[4]
  10. (Philippines) Salted dried meat.[4][1]
  11. (plural) The blankets and bedspread of a bed.[4][12]
  12. (Latin America) A bottle cap.[14]

Word family

  • tapar
  • tapón
  • tapujarse
  • destapar
  • tapear
  • tapadera
  • taparrabo
  • English tap
  • Italian tappare

Usage notes

Tapa de los sesos is the top of the skull, and volarle a alguien la tapa de los sesos is to blow someone's brains out.[4] A separate word of Nahuatl origin, tapa, was given by the Academy in 2001 for cane sugar loaf in El Salvador and Honduras and for the thorn apple in Honduras;[18][19] Membreño traced the plant name to Nahuatl tlapatl.[18][19] The Philippine dish tapa is from Tagalog, according to Wiktionary.[1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ 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, 408
  3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tapa
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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. tapa
  5. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
  6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6565
  7. ^ 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. tapa
  8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 223
  9. ^ a b Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 1032
  10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1008
  11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1118
  12. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tapa
  13. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. tapa
  14. ^ 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. tapa
  15. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. tapa
  16. ^ Medina, José Toribio (1927), Chilenismos: apuntes lexicográficos, Santiago de Chile: Imprenta Universo, p. 69
  17. ^ 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. tapa
  18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. tapa
  19. ^ a b Membreño, Alberto (1907), Aztequismos de Honduras, México: Imprenta de Müller Hermanos, p. 26

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Tapa.” Etymologically, 14 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/tapa. Accessed 14 Nov. 2026.

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