toalla

Forms

toalla f (plural toallas)^[1] Old Spanish toaja, tovaja and tobaja were the usual forms until the 16th century;^[2] Alfonso X's General estoria writes tauaias.^[3][2] Aragonese has toballa;^[4][1] toballa and tobaja are still given as variants.^[4][1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian tovaglia, or perhaps tovalla from Catalan, which took the place of the older Old Spanish toaja: Corominas reasons that the modern form cannot be a native development, and that it came from Italian if it entered in the second half of the 16th century, or from Catalan if it is older, with the old native word influencing it in either case.^[3][5] Bénaben and Wiktionary also explain the form by another Romance language, while Nocentini takes the Spanish word, like English “towel”, from French touaille.^[6][1][7] The Academy derives the modern word from the old tobaja.^[8]

All these forms go back to Proto-Germanic *þwahljō (“towel”).^[8][3][5] Corominas compares Old High German dwahila and the Old English word for a towel, and takes the Romance word from common West Germanic, or else from Gothic in Italy and the Iberian Peninsula, with Frankish as the source in France.^[3] Wiktionary names the source Frankish *þwahilu.^[1] The noun belongs with *þwahaną (“to wash”), whose descendants include Old Norse þvá and dwahan.^[9][10]

The same Germanic word gave Portuguese toalha.^[4] The Academy's dictionary of 1884 derived the word through Low Latin from the Gothic verb for “to wash”.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Libro de Alexandre (1240–1250, in an early-15th-century copy) has the old form for the cloths covering a banquet table: sedién noches e días las mesas aguisadas, de tovajas cubiertas “the tables stood laid night and day, covered with cloths”.^[12][3] About 1280 Alfonso X's General estoria uses tauaias for the white cloths in which a newborn child is wrapped.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In Old Spanish the word named a linen cloth for the table, for drying the hands and for covering: Alonso de Palencia defined it as the linen with which the hands are wiped.^[3] The form toalla appears in the Spanish translation of Mandeville (c. 1400) and in the Americas in 1512, but Corominas dates its general use to the second half of the 16th century;^[12][13] Autoridades still put toaja first, although all its quotations have toalla.^[12][13][3]

Autoridades and the Academy editions to 1899 also give the cloth laid over the pillows of a bed, a sense the DLE now marks as obsolete.^[14][8][15] The 19th-century editions describe a cloth for drying the hands and face; the DLE defines a piece of terry cloth for drying the body, and the cloth itself.^[16][8] The boxing phrase tirar la toalla “to throw in the towel” now also means to give up.^[8] In Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic the word also names the spongy lining of a cow's stomach used for mondongo.^[17][18] Spanish passed the word to Tagalog and Cebuano.^[1]

Timeline

• 1240–1250 – the Libro de Alexandre has toajas (tovajas in another manuscript).^[3][12]
• c. 1280 – Alfonso X's General estoria has tauaias.^[2]
• c. 1400 – the Spanish Viaje de Juan de Mandevilla has the form toallas.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives tovajas as the equivalent of Latin mantile.^[3]
• 1512 – the earliest record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico: 2 pares de toallas de estopa delgadas.^[13]
• c. 1535 – Antonio de Guevara uses the diminutive toalleta.^[3]
• 1570 – Cristóbal de las Casas records only toalla, the DCECH's first record of the modern form.^[3][5]
• 1591 – Percyvall glosses toalla as “a towell”.^[19]
• 1739 – Autoridades adds the cover laid over the pillows of a bed.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary gives an etymology for the first time, from Low Latin and Gothic.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A towel: a piece of terry cloth, cotton or similar material, usually rectangular, for drying the body: Se secó el pelo con una toalla grande.^[8][1]
2. Terry cloth, the looped fabric used for towels and bathrobes.^[8][20]
3. (obsolete) A cover laid over the pillows of a bed.^[8][14]
4. (Puerto Rico, Venezuela) A dishcloth.^[20]
5. (Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic) The spongy lining of a cow's stomach, the main ingredient of mondongo.^[17][18]

Word family

• toalleta
• toallero

Related words

• Portuguese toalha
• Italian tovaglia

Usage notes

Arrojar or tirar la toalla is said of a boxer's second who throws the towel into the ring to stop the fight, and figuratively of giving up.^[8] Toalla sanitaria (El Salvador, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Venezuela) and toalla higiénica (Argentina, Uruguay) mean a sanitary pad.^[8][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d 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. toalla
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 513
4. ^ a b c García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6685
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. toalla
6. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. toalla
7. ^ Nocentini, Alberto; Parenti, Alessandro (2010), l'Etimologico: vocabolario della lingua italiana, Firenze: Le Monnier, p. s.v. tovaglia
8. ^ 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. toalla
9. ^ Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 555
10. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill, p. 431
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1030
12. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. toalla
13. ^ a b c 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. toalla
14. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 965
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 751
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. toalla
18. ^ 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. toalla
19. ^ Percyvall, Richard (1591), Bibliothecae Hispanicae pars altera: containing a dictionarie in Spanish, English and Latine, London: John Jackson for Richard Watkins, p. 222
20. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. toalla