tercio

Forms

tercio (feminine tercia, masculine plural tercios, feminine plural tercias)^[1] Old Spanish forms include terzo, terço, terçio, tierzo, tierço and tyerço.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin tertius (“third”).^[3][4][5][1] Corominas treats it under tres as taken from Latin, and the REW too sets tercio apart from the popular descendants of the Latin word.^[3][6] The inherited ordinal is tercero, from tertiārius.^[4] Wiktionary calls it a doublet of tercia.^[1]

The Latin word is the ordinal of trēs (“three”), probably for *tritios.^[7] Wiktionary traces it to *tritios and PIE *tr̥tyós, the ordinal of *tréyes (“three”), and compares Ancient Greek τρίτος (trítos).^[1] Its popular descendants include Portuguese terço, French tiers and Italian terzo.^[6][8][9]

The sense “infantry regiment” is very common from the 16th century, and Corominas explains it by the division of some larger unit; he rejects the old link with the Roman Third Legion stationed in Spain, as Mayans already had, because the gap in time is too great.^[3] From Spanish the military sense passed into Italian in the 17th century.^[3]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DEMel's first primary record is a Huesca charter of 1145 with the form terzo; the 1131 Fuero de Calatayud has the feminine in tercia parte “third part”.^[2] Corominas's first record is the Fuero de Avilés of 1155.^[3][4] In Alfonso X's prose tercio is both the ordinal “third”, as in the Lapidario's piedra tercia “third stone”, and the fraction, one of three equal parts, as in the Fuero Juzgo.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias already noted that the word was almost the same as tercero but had other senses: half of a load carried on the back, dar buen tercio “to intercede”, tercio postrero de la vida “old age”, the third part of a year's rent and jugar en tercio “to play three-handed”.^[11] Autoridades gave the third part of anything, half a load in bales and the infantry regiment, citing Mármol for the military sense.^[12][3] In thieves' cant of 1609 a tercio was one who intercedes or stands surety.^[13] The Academy's 1817 edition added the parts of a sword, the stages of a horse's run and the parts of the rosary,^[14] and in 1843 it marked the adjective “third” as obsolete.^[15]

Today the DLE labels the adjective little used and lists, among other senses, a bale of leaf tobacco, a beer bottle holding a third of a litre, units of the Guardia Civil and the tercio de banderillas of the bullfight.^[5] In Cuba a tercio is a bale of tobacco wrapped in palm bark,^[16] and in the Río de la Plata a hide bale of yerba mate.^[17][18] Venezuela uses it for “a guy, an individual”, and the Dominican Republic for the family rosary and for a companion.^[19][20] In the Americas the word is recorded from 1518: morieron los dos tercios de toda la gente “two thirds of all the people died”.^[21]

Timeline

• 1145 – a Huesca charter has the form terzo.^[2]
• 1155 – the Fuero de Avilés, Corominas's first record.^[3][4]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses tercia as an ordinal.^[10]
• 1518 – first record from the Americas, in Tierra Firme.^[21]
• 1570 – the military sense “infantry regiment”, in Mármol.^[4][3]
• 1609 – the thieves' cant sense “one who intercedes or vouches”.^[13]
• 1611 – Covarrubias lists its senses and phrases.^[11]
• 1843 – the Academy marks the adjective “third” as obsolete.^[15]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin tertius.^[22]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (little used) Third in a series; tercero.^[5][23]
2. (little used) Of a part: being one of three equal parts, as in la tercia parte.^[5]

Noun

1. A third: one of three equal parts of a whole: Dos tercios de los vecinos votaron.^[5][23][1]
2. Each of the two halves of a pack animal's load when it goes in bales; a bale.^[5]
3. (bullfighting) Each of the three stages of a bullfight, as in tercio de banderillas; each of the three concentric zones of the ring.^[5][23][1]
4. A bottle of beer holding a third of a litre.^[5][23][1]
5. (military) A regiment of the old Spanish infantry; a unit of some modern corps, such as each division of the Guardia Civil.^[5][24]
6. (nautical) An association of the fishermen and boat owners of a port.^[5]
7. (Venezuela) A guy, an individual.^[19]

Word family

• terciar
• terciado
• terciopelo

Related words

• tercero
• tres
• tercia
• Latin tertius
• Portuguese terço

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. tercio
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 624
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tres
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. tercio
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3273
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ 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. tercio
11. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1325
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 253
13. ^ 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. tercio
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 837
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 696
16. ^ Pichardo, Esteban (1875), Diccionario provincial casi-razonado de vozes y frases cubanas, 4th ed., La Habana: Imprenta El Trabajo, p. 347
17. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 472
18. ^ Bayo, Ciro (1910), Vocabulario criollo-español sud-americano, Madrid: Hernando, p. 221
19. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
20. ^ Academia Dominicana de la Lengua; Instituto Guzmán Ariza de Lexicografía (2024), Diccionario del español dominicano, 2nd ed., online at https://ded.igalex.org, p. s.v. tercio
21. ^ a b 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. tercio
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1019
23. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tercio
24. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. tercio