tiritaña

Forms

tiritaña f (plural tiritañas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote tiritanna; a 1351 document has tiricanna, and the Santander customs tariffs of the 13th century have tiritayna.^[2][3] Autoridades also records tiritaina.^[4]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French tiretaine, the name of a cloth that is recorded in French from 1245.^[3][5][1] Corominas notes that the two oldest Castilian sources both treat it as a fabric imported from France, which supports the French origin;^[6] Old Catalan had it too, in the 13th-century Customs of Tortosa.^[3]

The origin of the French word is less certain.^[3][7] Corominas prefers Gamillscheg's view that it is derived from tiret, the name of a precious cloth, itself from tire (“silk cloth”), which goes back to Medieval Latin tyrium, a rich fabric named after Tyrius (“of Tyre”), the city from which purple and other costly stuffs were imported.^[3][5][6] The TLFi also derives it, probably, from the same two Old French words.^[7] Spitzer and Sainéan had seen in it an expressive, perhaps nursery word, comparing the refrain tirelitantaine and Asturian titiritaña (“flimsy, badly woven cloth”);^[8][4] Corominas grants that such forms influenced the word later but rejects them as its origin, since the cloth was a valued article of trade in the 13th century.^[3] He also thinks the French word is the probable source, through altered forms, of tarlatana.^[3][5]

Covarrubias and Autoridades explained the word as imitating the rustle of the silk.^[8][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Cortes de Jerez of 1268, which fix the price of la mejor tiritanna “the best tiritaña”: a costly woollen or silk cloth.^[3][9][2]

Semantic evolution

In the Middle Ages tiritaña was a fine imported cloth.^[3] By the 14th century it could also be a showy striped stuff: the Cortes of 1351 ordered the concubines of clerics to wear tiritaña with stripes, and Lope de Vega names it as the cloth with the most stripes and colours.^[3][10] Juan Alfonso de Baena threatened to dress his enemies del paño de tiritaña.^[10][3] In Guatemala in 1583 it was a cloth of wool and silk.^[11]

Covarrubias (1611) and Autoridades call it a thin silk, and Autoridades adds a figurative sense, “a thing of little substance”.^[8][4] Terreros, on the other hand, describes it as a cloth of thread and wool.^[12] The Academy's 1843 edition defines it as a flimsy silk, as the DLE still does.^[13][1] Castro, cited by Corominas, explained the modern sense of a flimsy fabric by the influence of tiritar (“to shiver”).^[3]

Timeline

• 1268 – the Cortes de Jerez list tiritanna among priced cloths.^[3][2]
• 13th century – the Santander customs tariffs have tiritayna.^[3]
• 1351 – the Cortes order clerics' concubines to wear striped tiritaña.^[3]
• 1406–1435 – Juan Alfonso de Baena mentions paño de tiritaña (in a copy of about 1465).^[10][3]
• 1583 – first record in the Americas, in Guatemala.^[11]
• 1611 – Covarrubias defines it as a thin silk.^[8]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades adds the figurative sense “a thing of little substance”.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. A flimsy silk fabric.^[1][14]
2. (colloquial) A thing of little substance or importance; a trifle.^[1][14]

Related words

• tarlatana
• French tiretaine

Usage notes

A separate word tiritaña in Alfonso X's falconry book (the Moamín) names an earthworm found in damp ground.^[15]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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. tiritaña
2. ^ a b c Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. tiritaña
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 423
4. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 282
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tarlatana
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6944
7. ^ a b Trésor de la langue française informatisé (2004), ATILF – CNRS & Université de Lorraine, atilf.fr/tlfi; electronic version of Imbs, Paul; Quemada, Bernard, eds. (1971–1994), Trésor de la langue française, Paris: CNRS / Gallimard
8. ^ a b c d Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1331
9. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. 408
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. tiritaña
11. ^ 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. tiritaña
12. ^ 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, 644
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 703
14. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. tiritaña
15. ^ 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. tiritaña