toro

Forms

toro m (plural toros)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin taurus (“bull”).^[2][3][4][1] The word has been in general use at every period and is common to all the Romance languages.^[2]

The same Latin word is Portuguese touro, Galician touro, Catalan toro, Occitan taur, Old French tor, Italian toro, Romanian taur and Sardinian trau.^[5][6][1] Modern French uses taureau, a later form of a diminutive of the old word.^[7] Corominas and the DCVB insist that the Catalan word is native, not a borrowing from Castilian, its final ⟨o⟩ being regular after ⟨r⟩; at the end of the 13th century Catalan also had tor and taur.^[2][8][9]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *tauro-, with cognates such as Ancient Greek ταῦρος (taûros, “bull”) and words for “bull” or “aurochs” in Celtic, Baltic and Slavic.^[10] Because the Latin word lacks a metathesis seen elsewhere in Latin, it may be a later loan, and since Indo-Iranian and Tocharian have no cognate while Semitic words for “bull” are strikingly similar, de Vaan thinks it may have been an early loanword into the western Indo-European languages.^[10] Wiktionary gives Proto-Indo-European *táwros, probably from a non-Indo-European substrate.^[1] Covarrubias in 1611 thought the word Hebrew.^[11] The learned doublet is Tauro, the constellation and sign of the zodiac.^[1][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is a charter of 1102, followed by Berceo.^[2][3] The CDH's first hit is the Fuero de Madrid (dated 1141–1235, in a copy of the first half of the 13th century): que uaca corriere dentro en la uilla, o toro, peche III morabetinos “whoever runs a cow or a bull inside the town shall pay three maravedís”.^[13] The DHLE dates the sense “male of cattle” from the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200), where Jacob's gift to Esau includes .xl. vacas e .x. toros “forty cows and ten bulls”.^[14][13] Berceo writes of the old sacrifices that for the rulers of the people toro sacrificavan “they sacrificed a bull”.^[13][15]

Semantic evolution

The DHLE records the sense “image of a bull” in Alfonso X's General estoria (c. 1275) and “bullfight”, a fight of several bulls in a ring, from 1545, in Lope de Rueda's Medora;^[14] Autoridades was the first dictionary to give it, in 1739.^[14] Bullfighting itself is named about 1280, in the Primera crónica general.^[3][2] Covarrubias in 1611 notes the Spaniards' passion for running bulls and compares it with the Roman games.^[11]

By metaphor the word named the stag beetle in 1624, and by synecdoche bull's meat (in El Periquillo Sarniento, 1816–1827) and bull's hide (1928).^[14] Figuratively it is a very strong man.^[4][16] In Chile and Argentina toro is a man of great courage or worth, or a well-dressed one, and in the Dominican Republic an outstanding man.^[17][18][19] In Cuba it names a poisonous fish with two horn-like spines, and in Chile a small jug for wine or beer.^[20][21] In Spain it is also the colloquial name of the forklift truck.^[4][22][1] The word passed into several languages of the Americas, among them Navajo and Tetelcingo Nahuatl.^[1]

Timeline

• 1102 – a charter, Corominas's first record.^[2][3]
• 1141–1235 – the Fuero de Madrid, in a 13th-century copy, the CDH's first hit.^[13]
• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar uses it for the male of cattle.^[14]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario describes a stone found in the gall of a bull or ox.^[23]
• c. 1275 – the General estoria uses it for an image of a bull.^[14]
• c. 1280 – the Primera crónica general names the fighting of bulls.^[3]
• 1375–1410 – the Escorial glossary is the first glossary to record it.^[14]
• 1534 – torero, in Boscán; torear follows in 1554.^[3]
• 1545 – Lope de Rueda uses toros for a bullfight.^[14]
• 1550 – the first record in the Americas, in Chile.^[24]
• 1611 – Covarrubias writes of the Spanish love of bullfighting.^[11]
• 1624 – the name of the stag beetle, in a translation of Pliny.^[14]
• 1739 – Autoridades is the first dictionary with the sense “bullfight”.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology and enters the architectural toro separately.^[25]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bull, the adult male of cattle: En la dehesa pastaban varios toros negros.^[4][1]
2. (figurative) A very strong, robust man: Levanta los sacos como un toro.^[4][16]
3. (Spain, colloquial) A forklift truck.^[4][22][1]
4. (in the plural) A bullfight: Los domingos iban a los toros.^[4][16]
5. (Chile, Argentina, Dominican Republic) A man of great worth, courage or skill.^[17][19]
6. (Cuba) A poisonous fish with two horn-like spines and a bony shell.^[20][26]

Word family

• torada
• torear
• torete
• toril
• toreo
• torillo
• torito
• torionda

Related words

• torero
• taurino
• tauromaquia
• Latin taurus
• Portuguese touro

Usage notes

The architectural and geometric toro, the convex moulding also called bocel and the torus of geometry, has a separate source: it is from Latin torus (“swelling, cushion”), which the DLE traces further to Ancient Greek τόρος (tóros).^[4][27][1] The Academy entered it in 1884, and its inherited doublet is tuero “log”.^[25][1][28] Phrases include coger el toro por los cuernos “to take the bull by the horns” and ciertos son los toros, said when something feared turns out to be true.^[16][29]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 559
3. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. toro
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. toro
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6595
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
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, 614
9. ^ Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. toro
10. ^ a b 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 Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1338
12. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Real Academia Española (2013–), Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (DHLE), https://www.rae.es/dhle, p. s.v. toro
15. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 755
16. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
17. ^ a b Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 508
18. ^ Garzón, Tobías (1910), Diccionario argentino, Barcelona: Imprenta Elzeviriana de Borrás y Mestres, p. 479
19. ^ 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. toro
20. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 205
21. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. toro
22. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial
23. ^ 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. toro
24. ^ 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. toro
25. ^ 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. 1036
26. ^ Suárez, Constantino (1921), Vocabulario cubano, La Habana: Librería Cervantes / Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Compañía, p. 497
27. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. toro
28. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6770
29. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 755