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taza

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Etymology and origin of the Spanish word taza

Confidence
Established
Formation
Borrowing
First attested
c. 1223 Semejanza del mundo More words from the 13th century
Borrowed from
Arabic طاس via Old Spanish
Ultimate origin
Middle Persian tašt

Pronunciation

  • /ˈtaθa/, [ˈt̪a.θa], /ˈtasa/[1]

Forms

taza f (plural tazas)[1] Old Spanish wrote taça, with ⟨ç⟩.[2][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish taça, borrowed from Andalusian Arabic طاس (ṭássa, “bowl”).[3][4][5][6][1] The DLE traces the Andalusian word to Arabic طست (ṭast), the classical form, and to a Persian word for “bowl”.[5] Wiktionary gives the Arabic as طاس (ṭās), a shortening of the longer form, from Middle Persian tašt.[1] Corominas notes that Arabic has had the word, beside a variant with a long vowel, since the classical period, and that Arabic may itself have taken the word from another eastern language, but in Romance it comes from Arabic.[3]

Equally old are Portuguese taça, Catalan tassa, French tasse and Italian tazza; the French word, recorded from the 12th century, came from the East through trade.[3][7] Corriente adds Medieval Latin tacea, which Autoridades had thought to be the source of the Spanish word.[6][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word to a Seville document of 1272, and the diminutive tazola, a bronze or copper vessel, already appears in a Sahagún charter of 996.[3] He rejects Oelschläger's record from a Mozarabic document of 1157, because that list does not separate Romance words from Arabic words in Arabic documents.[3] The CDH has taças in the Semejanza del mundo (c. 1223), where cups and vessels of earth are said to have been first found on an island, and a 1244 will leaves la mia taça de plata “my silver cup”.[9]

Semantic evolution

The Arabic word and the early Romance ones mostly named vessels larger than today's cup: Ramon Martí translates it as Latin pelvis “basin”, and Pedro de Alcalá has taça, taçón para beber “cup, large cup for drinking”.[3][10] Medieval wills leave silver taças beside other vessels.[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades records the basin into which a fountain pours its water, and jokingly the buttocks; it also has the phrase amigo de taza de vino for a friend who shows his friendship only when there is something to gain.[8] The Academy's dictionary added the cup-shaped guard of a sword hilt in 1884, and in 1899 defined the word as the small vessel with a handle used for drinking.[11][12] In Andalusia tazón still means a washbasin.[3]

In Chile and Peru taza has meant a washbasin, and in the Río de la Plata it is a car's hubcap.[13][14] Spanish passed the word on to Tagalog tasa and to O'odham.[1]

Timeline

  • 996 – the diminutive tazola in a charter from Sahagún.[3]
  • c. 1223 – taças in the Semejanza del mundo.[9]
  • 1244 – la mia taça de plata in a will.[9]
  • 1272 – first record according to Corominas, in a document from Seville.[3][4]
  • c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses taça o taçon para bever with Latin phiala.[15][3]
  • 1518 – first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo: por una sola taça de vino.[16]
  • 1739 – first record of tazón according to Corominas's Breve diccionario.[4]
  • 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the Arabic etymology and the sword-guard sense.[11]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A cup, small vessel, usually of china or metal and with a handle, for drinking: Me sirvió el café en una taza blanca.[5][1]
  2. A cupful: Añade una taza de harina.[5]
  3. The round basin of a fountain.[5][17]
  4. The bowl of a toilet.[5][1]
  5. The round, concave metal guard of the hilt of some swords.[5][17]
  6. (Paraguay, Argentina, Uruguay) A hubcap.[14]
  7. (Chile, Peru) A washbasin.[13]

Word family

  • tazón
  • tacho
  • Portuguese taça
  • French tasse
  • Italian tazza

Usage notes

The saying si no quieres caldo, taza y media (also dos tazas) is said when someone must put up with more of something unwelcome than expected.[17][1]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
  2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. taza
  3. ^ 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, 443
  4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. taza
  5. ^ 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. taza
  6. ^ a b 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. taça
  7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. tasse
  8. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 233
  9. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. taza
  10. ^ Eguílaz y Yanguas, Leopoldo de (1886), Glosario etimológico de las palabras españolas (castellanas, catalanas, gallegas, mallorquinas, portuguesas, valencianas y bascongadas) de origen oriental, Granada: La Lealtad, p. 528
  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. 1012
  12. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 947
  13. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 766
  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. taza
  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, p. s.v. taza
  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. taza
  17. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. taza

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Taza.” Etymologically, 7 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/es/taza. Accessed 7 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·