tinta

Forms

tinta f (plural tintas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin tincta, properly the feminine past participle of tingō (“to wet, dye”), so that the word first meant “something dyed”.^[2][3][4][1] The Late Latin noun is already found at the end of the 4th century in Lucifer of Cagliari, in the sense “stroke of the pen”.^[2] Medieval Latin used it for “ink”.^[5]

The word is shared with Portuguese tinta, Occitan and Catalan.^[2][1] Wiktionary compares Italian tinta and French teinte, which continue the same participle.^[1] The Latin verb goes back to *tengō and Proto-Indo-European *teng- (“to make wet”), and is cognate with Ancient Greek τέγγω (téngō, “to make wet”).^[6][1]

Spanish tinto continues the masculine participle tinctus, and tinte, with a sound shape foreign to Castilian, was probably taken from Catalan or Mozarabic.^[2][3]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word from the middle of the 13th century, in the Buenos proverbios, and next from a glossary of the Escorial of about 1400.^[2][3] The Old Spanish Textual Archive has it from 1250, in Alfonso X's Lapidario and another text of that year; by 1280 it occurs in the General estoria.^[7] The DEMel also lists it in the glossaries of the Libro de Alexandre and of a 13th-century customs tariff.^[8]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias in 1611 gave Latin atramentum as its equivalent and noted that of the many kinds of tinta the main one was that used for writing.^[9] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined it first as any colour laid on or used to dye, then specifically as the black liquid for writing, made of copperas, oak galls, alum and gum arabic boiled in water or wine; it also recorded de buena tinta “with force and skill” and saber algo de buena tinta “to know something from a reliable source”.^[10] The Academy added the painter's media tinta and the proverb do tu padre fue con tinta, no vayas tú con quilma in 1817, tinta simpática “invisible ink” in 1869 and tinta de imprenta “printer's ink” in 1899.^[11][12][13] The figurative medias tintas, vague and over-cautious words or deeds, is in Alemany's dictionary of 1917.^[14]

In the Americas the word is recorded from 1513, in a Puerto Rican inventory with 1 redoma de tinta “a flask of ink”.^[15] In El Salvador and Guatemala tinta was a name for añil (indigo), and in Puerto Rico it describes black, strong coffee.^[16][17] Tagalog borrowed the word as tinta.^[1]

Timeline

• c. 1250 – first record, in the Buenos proverbios.^[2][3]
• 1250 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses the word.^[7]
• c. 1400 – a glossary of the Escorial records tinta and tintero.^[2]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses tinta para escrivir with Latin atramentum.^[18]
• 1513 – first record in the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[15]
• 1611 – Covarrubias names writing ink as the chief kind.^[9]
• 1869 – the Academy adds tinta simpática.^[12]
• 1899 – the Academy adds tinta de imprenta and first derives the word from tinto.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. ink: a coloured liquid used for writing or drawing with a pen or other instrument: Firmó el contrato con tinta azul.^[4][19][1]
2. A colour laid over something, or with which it is dyed.^[4][20]
3. A dye (tinte), a substance used for dyeing.^[4]
4. (zoology) The dark liquid that cephalopods such as the squid release to cloud the water when they flee.^[4][19]
5. (obsolete) The act of dyeing.^[4][20]
6. (in the plural) Shades or gradations of colour.^[4][19]
7. (painting, in the plural) Mixtures of colours prepared for painting.^[4][20]
8. (Puerto Rico) Of coffee: black and very strong.^[17][21]

Word family

• tintero
• entintar
• tintar
• chupatintas

Related words

• teñir
• tinto
• tinte
• tintura
• Latin tincta
• Portuguese tinta

Usage notes

Set phrases include de buena tinta “from a reliable source”, medias tintas “half measures, vague words”, tinta china “Indian ink” and tinta simpática “invisible ink”.^[4][20][10] In Andalusia tinta is also the name of a black grape variety.^[22]

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 g Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 466
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. teñir
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. tinta
5. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. tincta
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
7. ^ a b Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies (2026), Old Spanish Textual Archive (OSTA): semi-paleographic transcriptions of Old Spanish texts, ed. Francisco Gago Jover et al., https://www.hispanicseminary.org
8. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. tinta
9. ^ 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. 1330
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 277
11. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 844
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 749
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 962
14. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1585
15. ^ 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. tinta
16. ^ Batres Jáuregui, Antonio (1892), Vicios del lenguaje y provincialismos de Guatemala, Guatemala: Encuadernación y Tipografía Nacional, p. 524
17. ^ 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. tinta
18. ^ 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. tinta
19. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. tinta
20. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tinta
21. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. tinta
22. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 607