tela

Forms

tela f (plural telas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish tela, inherited from Latin tēla (“cloth on a loom, web”).^[1][2][3]

The same Latin word is Portuguese teia (older tea), Galician tea, Catalan tela, Occitan tela, French toile, Italian tela and Romanian teară; Portuguese tela is a learned form or taken from Spanish.^[4][5][6][7]

The Latin noun comes from an older *tekslā, formed from the root of texō (“to weave”).^[1][8][9] The verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *teḱ-s- (“to fashion”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) has the plural in a figurative sense: the Cid tells his sons-in-law allá me levades las telas del coraçón, “you take away with you the membranes of my heart”, that is, his daughters.^[11][2] The first record of woven cloth that survives in a contemporary copy is in the Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250): El texedor del picote tome por la tela texida, tinta et tondida dos menkales, “the weaver of picote shall take two menkales for the cloth woven, dyed and shorn”.^[11] An earlier hit in the Fuero de Madrid, tella, is a tile.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's Lapidario already uses tela for cloth, for a membrane, for the film that forms over the eye and, in tela de araña, for a spider's web.^[12] Berceo has las telas for the heart and the inner parts of the body.^[13] Autoridades gave cloth of gold or silver as the meaning by antonomasia.^[14] The Academy's editions of 1817 and 1869 added the film on liquids, the skin of some fruits and the figurative senses “tangle, deceit” and “matter to talk about”, and that of 1899 a fishing net of the Ebro.^[15][16][17]

Modern colloquial Spanish uses tela for money, for a great quantity (tela de gente), and in phrases such as tener tela “to be hard work”; in painting it is a canvas.^{[3][1][18][19]}

Timeline

• c. 1140 – the Cid speaks of las telas del coraçón.^[11][2]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita fixes the weaver's pay for a tela.^[11]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario has tela daranna “spider's web”.^[12]
• early 14th century – the derivative telar “loom”.^[2]
• c. 1400 – the compound telaraña.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin tela for “cloth or loom for weaving”.^[20]
• 1765–1783 – the derivative telón “stage curtain”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. cloth, fabric: material woven on a loom from many crossed threads, or knitted from a single thread: Compramos tres metros de tela para las cortinas.^[3][1]
2. The material set on the loom at one time.^[3]
3. A membrane (membrana): la tela del corazón.^[3]
4. A net used on the Ebro to catch shad, sturgeon and other fish.^[3]
5. The skin that forms on some liquids; the thin inner skin of some fruits.^[3]
6. A spider's web.^[3]
7. A film that begins to form over the pupil of the eye.^[3]
8. A tangle, intrigue or lie.^[3]
9. (colloquial) Matter to talk about: Con ese asunto hay tela para toda la tarde.^[3][19]
10. (colloquial) A great deal, without article and followed by de.^[3][1]
11. (colloquial) Money.^[3][1]
12. (painting) A canvas (lienzo); a painting on canvas.^[3]

Word family

• telar
• teleta
• telilla
• telón
• entelar
• entretela
• telaraña

Related words

• tejer
• textil
• Portuguese teia
• Latin tēla

Usage notes

The DLE has a second tela, from the Latin plural of tēlum (“dart”): the barrier in the lists that kept two jousting horses apart, an enclosure for hunting or for public spectacles, and formerly a judicial examination, whence en tela de juicio “in doubt”.^[3] Coromines derives the Catalan word for the jousting barrier, first recorded in 1397, from the same plural, in the sense “palisade”.^[21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tela
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. tela
4. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6611
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3252
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. tela
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. tela
9. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. tela
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. texo
11. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. tela
12. ^ 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. tela
13. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 742
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 236
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 833
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 739
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 949
18. ^ León, Víctor (1980), Diccionario de argot español y lenguaje popular, Madrid: Alianza Editorial, p. s.v. tela
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tela
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 421
21. ^ 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. 8, 378