tienda

Forms

tienda f (plural tiendas)^[1] Beside tienda and tiendas, medieval texts also have the undiphthongised tenda and tendas.^[2] Henríquez Ureña records tindería for tienda in the Spanish of Mexico.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin tenda (“tent”), a word of early Medieval Latin that Byzantine writers record from the 7th century, formed from tendō (“to stretch, spread out”).^[4][5][6][1] Wiktionary traces it to a contracted Vulgar Latin *tendita, the feminine of *tenditus, a variant of tentus, the past participle of the same verb, perhaps first said of a stretched cloth.^[1] The DHLF instead forms it from the supine of the same verb.^[7] The DLE gives the Latin as *tenda.^[6]

The same word is Italian tenda, Catalan tenda, Occitan tenda and Portuguese tenda, and Romanian tindă “porch, entrance hall”.^[8][1][9] French tente was borrowed around 1130 from Old Occitan, according to the DHLF.^[7]

The Latin verb continues a Proto-Italic present *tend-, from Proto-Indo-European *ten- (“to stretch”) with a ⟨d⟩-extension.^[10][1] Its Latin past participle also gave Spanish tieso, earlier Old Spanish teso, whose ⟨ie⟩ came from the influence of tiendo “I stretch”.^[5][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds the word in a charter of 982, and DEMel's earliest record in a Castilian text is the plural tiendas in the Nájera documents of 1052.^[4][5][2] In the Cantar de mio Cid (c. 1140, in a 14th-century copy) it is the tent of a camp: the Cid stops by the river gravel, fincava la tienda e luego descavalgava “he pitched the tent and then dismounted”.^[11] Menéndez Pidal notes that the Cid takes a tent from Vivar into exile and that his knights carry tents too; it was raised on a pole held by ropes tied to stakes in the ground.^[12]

Semantic evolution

The sense “shop” grew out of the tent or covered stall of a trader.^[13][14] VOX explains that the word first named the curtain over a seller's bench and then, by metonymy, the stall itself.^[13] Covarrubias in 1611 says that foreign merchants who brought food and wares used such tents or shelters of branches, and so shops and any place where something is sold came to be called tiendas.^[14] The Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250) already speaks of renting a house or a tienda by the year or by the month, and Alfonso X's Picatrix (1256) of a merchant's tienda.^[11][15] The Estoria de España adds that the people called inns tiendas.^[15] Nebrija's dictionaries list the shop of a potter, a goldsmith or a shoemaker as tienda, and even a surgical probe.^[4][16]

The Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) still put the military tent first, then the canvas awning of galleys, which crews “made” and “struck” (hacer tienda, abatir tienda), as in the Quijote, and the cover of a cart.^[17][18] The Academy defined the shop as a place selling clothes or food in 1817.^[19] Today the shop is the everyday sense, while the tent is usually tienda de campaña.^[6][20] In several countries of the Americas the bare word means a draper's shop, and in Bolivia and Chile a political faction.^[21][6] The word passed into Tagalog as tinda.^[1]

Timeline

• 982 – first record, in a charter.^[4][5]
• 1052 – the plural tiendas in the Nájera documents.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid (in a 14th-century copy): the Cid pitches his tent.^[11][12]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita: a house or tienda rented by the year, the earliest CDH record not known only from a later copy.^[11]
• 1256 – Alfonso X's Picatrix speaks of a merchant's tienda.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives tienda for a tent and for shops where things are sold or made.^[4][22]
• 1515 – first record in the Americas, in Tierra Firme: lo que rentavan las tiendas “what the shops yielded”.^[23]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses it “a shop”.^[24]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the proverb quien tiene tienda, que atienda “who keeps a shop must mind it”.^[14]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines the tent, the galley awning and the cart cover.^[17]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from tender and Latin tentum.^[25]

Meanings

Noun

1. A tent (in full tienda de campaña): a shelter of cloth or skins on poles fixed in the ground, used for camping and in war: Montamos la tienda junto al río.^[6][1]
2. (nautical) An awning put up on some boats against sun or rain.^[6]
3. A cover of the same kind put over carts.^[6]
4. A shop or store: a place where goods are sold retail: Compré el pan en la tienda de la esquina.^[6][1]
5. By antonomasia, a grocer's or a haberdasher's.^[6]
6. (Chile, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Venezuela) A shop selling fabrics and clothes.^[6][21]
7. (Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay in the plural) A political faction or party.^[21]

Word family

• tendejón
• tendero
• trastienda
• tenducho

Related words

• tender
• tieso
• Latin tendō
• Portuguese tenda

Usage notes

The tent is tienda de campaña when the context does not make it clear;^[6] tienda de modas is a shop selling the latest fashions.^[6]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. tienda
3. ^ Henríquez Ureña, Pedro (2015), Obras completas, vol. 12: 1936–1940 III, ed. Miguel D. Mena, Santo Domingo: Ministerio de Cultura, p. 78
4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 459
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tender
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. tienda
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. tente
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. tenda
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. tienda
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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. tienda
12. ^ a b Menéndez Pidal, Ramón (1908–1911), Cantar de Mio Cid: texto, gramática y vocabulario, 3 vols., Madrid: Bailly-Baillière, p. 458
13. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. tienda
14. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1328
15. ^ a b c 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. tienda
16. ^ 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. tienda
17. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 272
18. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 273
19. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 842
20. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tienda
21. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. tienda
22. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 422
23. ^ 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. tienda
24. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 221
25. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1024