teta

Forms

teta f (plural tetas)^[1]

Etymology

Corominas takes it as an expressive creation, at first a word of children's speech, shared by Castilian and Portuguese teta with French.^[2][3] The DLE also calls it perhaps expressive, comparing Proto-Germanic *tĭtta and τίτθη (títthē, “nurse”).^[4] Others derive it from Old French tete (“nipple”), itself perhaps from Frankish *titta: so Wiktionary and Gómez de Silva.^[1][5] García de Diego also takes the Frankish word as the source.^[6] Bénaben leaves open an expressive formation imitating sucking or a Germanic word brought by wet nurses in the late Empire.^[7]

Corominas rejects the borrowing in detail.^[2] Greek has τιτθός (titthós, “nipple”) and the word for “nurse” from classical times, and the word is old in the Brythonic Celtic languages.^[2] In Germanic it is West Germanic only, with Old English titt and German Zitze (“teat”), not Gothic or Norse, and its shape does not fit an inherited Indo-European word.^[2] Since Gothic lacks it, Castilian cannot have taken it from Gothic; and since the languages between Castilian and French lack it, it cannot be a Germanic loan in Vulgar Latin or a Frankish word passed on through French.^[2] He concludes that Romance, Germanic, Celtic and Greek made the word separately, as children's speech does, and that it is found in non-Indo-European languages too, such as Basque titi.^[2][3] Corominas finds no record of Vulgar Latin *titta before the Romance languages appear, though it probably existed at least locally.^[2]

The REW presents the word as found in all the Romance languages, but Corominas notes that Catalan uses mamella instead, and that Italian and most Occitan say poppa; French tette is now dated or dialectal.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

The DCECH's first record is Berceo; the BDELC dates it 1220–1250.^[2][3] The CDH has it earlier in the Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca (c. 1215, in a 14th-century copy), which says of the starving saint: “En sus pechos non abiá tetas, como yo cuido, eran secas” “on her chest she had no breasts, I think, they were dried up”.^[8] The first record without a later copy is the Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250), with a heading on cutting off a woman's breasts.^[8] Berceo, in the Duelo de la Virgen, addresses Mary as the one “que de las tus tetas mamantest' a Messía” “who suckled the Messiah at your breasts”.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

The word has been in general use at all times.^[2] The prose of Alfonso X already has the phrases dar la teta “to suckle” and niño de teta “suckling child”.^[10] Covarrubias (1611) derived it either from the Greek word for a nurse or from the letter theta, which a breast resembles with its nipple in the middle.^[11] Autoridades recorded teta de vaca, a long thick grape, and the phrases dar la teta al asno “to do a kindness that will not be thanked” and mamar una teta, said of a grown person too attached to his mother.^[12] Terreros noted that politeness preferred pechos for the human breast.^[13] In 1899 the Academy listed teta de vaca as a cone-shaped meringue and traced the word to a Greek source; in 1917 Alemany derived it from Germanic titta.^[14][15]

Some places use it for an isolated cone-shaped hill, as with mambla from Latin mammula; in Cuba it is said mostly of two such hills side by side, a sense already in Juan de Castellanos in the 16th century.^[2][16] In colloquial Spain teta also means “great, excellent”, and as an adverb “very well”.^[17][18] In Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador and the Dominican Republic it is a well-paid public post with little work.^[19][20]

Timeline

• c. 1215 – Vida de Santa María Egipcíaca, in a 14th-century copy.^[8]
• 1220–1250 – Berceo, the first record in the DCECH and the BDELC.^[2][3]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General estoria has dar la teta and niño de teta.^[10]
• 1400s – first record of destetar “to wean”.^[2][3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records tetilla and tetuda.^[2][3]
• 1519 – the first record in the Americas, in Tierra Firme: niños de teta.^[21]
• 1611 – Covarrubias gives tetona and two etymologies.^[11]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary first gives an etymology, from Greek.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A breast or teat, the milk gland of a mammal;^[4][1][17] (colloquial or vulgar) a woman's breast.^[4][1][17]
2. (colloquial) The milk it gives: A los ocho meses aún pedía teta.^[4]
3. The nipple.^[4]
4. A rounded, isolated hill, a mambla.^[4][17]
5. (colloquial) Something very good.^[4][18]
6. (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic) A well-paid post, usually in government, with little work.^[19][20]

Word family

• tetilla
• tetona
• tetuda
• destetar
• atetado
• tetón

Related words

• Portuguese teta
• French tette

Usage notes

Dar la teta “to breastfeed” and de teta “still at the breast” are set phrases;^[4][17] teta de vaca is a large cone-shaped meringue and a plant.^[4][17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 478
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. teta
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. teta
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. s.v. teta
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. teta
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. teta
8. ^ 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. teta
9. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. s.v. teta
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. teta
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. 1327
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 264
13. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 625
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 957
15. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1579
16. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 164
17. ^ a b c d e f Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. teta
18. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. teta
19. ^ 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. teta
20. ^ a b 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. teta
21. ^ 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. teta