tejo

tejo¹ shard, quoit, disc for games

Etymology tree of tejo¹

inherited borrowed derived

Latin tegō

Latin tēgula

Italian tegola

Spanish teja

Spanish tejo

From the same root · tejo¹

Latin contegō ← tegō

Latin dētegō ← tegō

Latin integō ← tegō

Latin obtegō ← tegō

Latin prōtegō ← tegō

Latin retegō ← tegō

Latin tēctōrius ← tegō

Latin tēctus ← tegō

Latin teges ← tegō

Latin tegimen ← tegō

Latin tegumentum ← tegō

English tile ← tēgula

Pronunciation

• /ˈtexo/, [ˈt̪e.xo]^[1]

Forms

tejo m (plural tejos)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the piece of tile or disc used in games is from Spanish teja (“roof tile”), made masculine.^[1][2][3] Corominas lists it among the derivatives of the word for tile, and García de Diego explains it as a round piece of tile.^[2][4]

The word for tile is itself recorded from 1219 and comes from Latin tēgula (“tile”), a word of the same root as tegō (“to cover”).^[2][5] The Latin noun is traced to Proto-Indo-European *(s)teg- (“to cover”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Nebrija's Vocabulario (c. 1495) is the first record; he translates tejo with Latin testaceum and testu, a piece of baked clay.^[2][5][6]

Semantic evolution

The Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as a piece of tile or the like that boys shape into a round for playing, and also the game in which tejos are thrown at a peg (hito), won by the player who knocks it down or lands nearest; it adds a thick round metal plate and a lump of gold, as opposed to a silver bar.^[7] The gold sense is recorded earlier in the Americas: in 1550 a man from Peru brought un tejo de oro to Panama.^[8] By 1899 the Academy also listed the blank from which a coin is struck and a part of a machine.^[9]

The game sense took regional forms.^[10][11][12] In Chile and elsewhere tejo is hopscotch, the game in which a stone is pushed through squares drawn on the ground.^[10][11] In the Canary Islands this use is recorded from 1892.^[13][1] In Colombia it is a national sport in which a metal disc is thrown at a target with small charges of gunpowder, also called turmequé.^[12][1] Corominas records a Cuban boys' game played with buttons and a piece of brick.^[2]

The colloquial phrase tirar los tejos means “to hint at one's interest in someone”, and in Colombia a lo que da el tejo means “to the full”.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Vocabulario records tejo with Latin testaceum.^[5][6]
• 1550 – tejo de oro “lump of gold” in a document from Panama.^[8]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the playing disc, the game, the metal plate and the lump of gold.^[7]
• 1892 – first record of tejo as hopscotch in the Canary Islands.^[13]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the coin blank and the machine part.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small piece of tile or similar flat object used in various games; a quoit or disc.^[11][1]
2. Any of the games played with such a piece, such as hopscotch (rayuela) or chito.^[11][1]
3. (Canary Islands) Hopscotch.^[13][1]
4. (Colombia) A traditional sport in which a metal disc is thrown at a target holding small charges of gunpowder; also the disc itself.^[12][1]
5. A thick round metal plate.^[11]
6. A lump of gold not yet worked.^[11]
7. A coin blank (cospel).^[11]
8. (nautical) The plate on which the spindle of a capstan turns.^[11]
9. (mechanics) A tejuelo, the piece on which the pivot of a shaft rests.^[11]

Word family

• tejuelo

tejo² yew

Etymology tree of tejo²

inherited borrowed derived

Latin taxus

Spanish tejo

Pronunciation

• /ˈtexo/, [ˈt̪e.xo]^[1]

Forms

tejo m (plural tejos)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the yew is inherited from Old Spanish texo, inherited from Latin taxus (“yew”).^[14][1][15] The tree has the same name in Portuguese teixo, Galician teixo, Asturian texu, Catalan teix and Italian tasso.^[16][17]

De Vaan connects the Latin word with Ancient Greek τόξον (tóxon, “bow”), since yew was the usual wood for bows;^[18] Latin cannot have borrowed the word straight from Greek, and he suggests either a zero-grade form of Proto-Indo-European *tekʷ- (“to flow, run”) or a loan from another Indo-European language.^[18] Wiktionary takes it as a loan of Scythian origin.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso X's General Estoria (before 1284, in a 15th-century copy) mentions trees called texos that bent down to the ground and rose again.^[19] The first record in a contemporary manuscript is the Fuero de Sepúlveda (c. 1300), which allows the whole texo to be lopped but not topped.^[19] Corominas's first date is about 1325.^[14]

Semantic evolution

Medieval texts name the yew among the wild trees of the mountains, beside the strawberry tree, savin and juniper, and a 14th-century agricultural treatise warns that it is an enemy of bees.^[19] Nebrija's Latin dictionary gives taxus for it.^[20] Covarrubias describes a tree like the beech with poisonous berries, and thought that the word for poison, tóxico, came from the Latin name.^[21] Terreros notes that in antiquity it adorned tombs and funerals like the cypress.^[22] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 was the first to give its source, Latin taxus.^[15] Old texts write the word texo, and Autoridades still sends the reader to that spelling.^[7][14]

Timeline

• before 1284 – Alfonso X's General Estoria (15th-century copy) mentions texos.^[19]
• c. 1300 – the Fuero de Sepúlveda regulates the lopping of the texo.^[19]
• c. 1325 – Corominas's date of first record.^[14]
• 1611 – Covarrubias describes the tree and its poisonous berries.^[21]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology from Latin taxus.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. The yew (Taxus baccata), an evergreen conifer with dark linear leaves and a seed wrapped in a red aril; its leaves and seeds are poisonous.^{[11][23][3][1]}