topo

Forms

topo m (plural topos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *talpus, a masculine form of Latin talpa (“mole”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin noun was at first masculine (in Virgil), and the masculine form is attested in a gloss.^[6][7]

All the western Romance languages keep the word, some as a feminine and some as a masculine.^[3] The masculine is found in Spanish and in Catalan talp; the feminine in French taupe, in Galician toupa and in Mozarabic taupa (“a mouse”), which Pedro de Alcalá recorded.^[3][8] Italian has both, with Italian topo shifted to the sense mouse and talpa the mole.^[3][9] Portuguese replaced the simple word with the derivative Portuguese toupeira, and the Asturian form is topu.^[3][10][11] The English word taupe comes from the French one.^[1]

The Latin noun has no known etymology.^[12] The DHLF reports Wartburg's view that it was borrowed from a pre-Latin language, and notes that names of small animals often lack an etymology.^[13]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Alfonso X's Estoria de España (c. 1270), which says that the river Ana (the Guadiana) is called by a word that in Greek means topo, por que va a logares escondido so tierra e depues sale “because it runs hidden under the earth in places and then comes out”.^[14][15][3] The second part of the General Estoria (c. 1275) notes that moles live in the bowels of the earth.^[15]

Semantic evolution

Corominas finds the word in general use at all periods, from the 14th-century Juan Ruiz to the glossaries of about 1400, Alonso de Palencia and Nebrija.^[3] Covarrubias in 1611 describes the mole as blind and harmful to fields and gardens.^[16]

The Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) calls topo a person who stumbles over everything, from short sight or clumsiness, and in 1869 the Academy added a person of little understanding who gets everything wrong.^[17][18] The modern dictionaries add a person who infiltrates an organisation in the service of others, a person who lives in hiding for fear of political reprisals (Spain), and a round spot on fabric or paper.^[2][19] In Chile and Ecuador it is also a tunnelling machine.^[2][20] In Mexico the name is also given to the pocket gopher.^[21]

Timeline

• c. 1270 – Alfonso X's Estoria de España mentions the mole that runs hidden under the earth.^[14][3]
• c. 1275 – the General Estoria says that moles live inside the earth.^[15]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin talpa as its equivalent.^[22]
• 1541 – the first record from the Americas, in Michoacán.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from talpa, “as if tolpo”.^[16]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the figurative sense “a person who stumbles over everything”.^[17]
• 1869 – the Academy adds “a person of little understanding”.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology Latin talpa.^[24]
• 2001 – the Academy's dictionary records the sense “an infiltrated agent”.^[25]

Meanings

Noun

1. A mole: a small insect-eating mammal with dense dark fur, tiny eyes and strong claws, which digs tunnels underground.^[2][1]
2. A mole, a spy who works inside an organisation for others: Sospechaban que había un topo en el ministerio.^[2][1]
3. A round spot or dot printed on a fabric, paper or other surface: una corbata de topos blancos.^[2][19]
4. (colloquial) A person who stumbles over things from short sight or clumsiness.^[2]
5. (colloquial) A dim-witted person who always gets things wrong.^[2]
6. (Spain) A person who lives in hiding for fear of political reprisals.^[2]
7. (Chile, Ecuador) A tunnel-boring machine.^[2][20]

Word family

• topera

Related words

• Latin talpa
• Catalan talp
• French taupe

Usage notes

Topo “a measure of distance of a league and a half” used among the indigenous peoples of South America is perhaps from Cumanagoto topo (“round stone”), according to the Academy; the Diccionario de Autoridades already recorded it in 1739 as an Indian word, and Friederici derives it from Quechua and Aymara tupu.^[2][17][26] Topo “a large pin or brooch of indigenous women” (Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Ecuador, Peru) is from Quechua tupu (“brooch”); it is recorded from 1551 in Betanzos and in 1553 in Cieza de León.^[2][27][28] In the Canaries and Venezuela topo also means “a hill”.^[29][30]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. topo
3. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 549
4. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. topo
5. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México, p. 689
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
8. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 8, 243
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
10. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3332
11. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. topo
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. taupe
14. ^ 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. topo
15. ^ 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. topo
16. ^ 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. 1335
17. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 298
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 753
19. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. topo
20. ^ 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. topo
21. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 202
22. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 423
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. topo
24. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1034
25. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. topo
26. ^ Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 620
27. ^ Friederici, Georg (1947), Amerikanistisches Wörterbuch, Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter, p. 621
28. ^ Grupo IATEXT, Universidad de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, AMERLEX: corpus of americanisms in early texts on the Americas (online database), p. s.v. topo
29. ^ Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. topo
30. ^ Alvarado, Lisandro (1921), Glosario de voces indígenas de Venezuela, Caracas: Victoria, p. 294