trama

Forms

trama f (plural tramas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin trāma (“weft; warp”).^[2][3][4][1] Corominas notes that the word has been in general use in every period and is common to all the Romance languages.^[2]

The same Latin word is Portuguese trama, Catalan trama, Occitan trama, Italian trama and Romanian tramă.^[5][6] French had Old French traime; the modern French trame was reshaped after the verb tramer.^[7]

The Latin noun is recorded from Varro on.^[8] The OLD takes it to have meant the warp in some kind of weaving and notes that the sense “weft” is the one the Romance languages show, while Lewis & Short give “woof, weft”.^[9][8] Its origin is unclear: the OLD suggests, with a “perhaps”, a form built on trahō (“to draw, drag”), as Wiktionary and Gómez de Silva also do, while Bénaben derives it from trans (“across”).^{[9][1][10][11]}

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest hit in the CDH, a charter of 1264, has the word only in the surname Iuan Perez de Tramas.^[12] The first record of the noun itself is the Old Testament translation of Escorial manuscript I.j.8, from before 1300, which speaks of garments de stanbre & de trama “of warp and of weft”.^[12][13] The DCECH and the BDELC date the word from Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor (1330–1343), where it is already figurative, of a love affair or intrigue: En otras cosas muchas entiendo esta trama “in many other things I can see this scheme”.^[2][3][12] Corominas wonders whether it may mean “love-sickness” there, comparing an Andalusian Arabic word for a deadly swelling.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The verb tramar “to weave the weft into the warp” is recorded long before the noun, in the Glosas Emilianenses of about 950.^[2][3] Nebrija gave the noun the Latin equivalents trama and subtegmen.^[14] Covarrubias in 1611 derived it from Latin trames “path”, because the thread passes from one side of the warp to the other, and recorded that Tamarid listed it among the words of Arabic origin.^[15]

The Academy's first dictionary defined it as the thread that crosses the warp, and added a kind of silk used for the weft and, figuratively, a cunning device to harm someone.^[16] Salvá added the hanging blossom of some trees in 1846, and Alemany in 1917 the flowering of trees, above all of the olive.^[17][18] The 2001 edition of the Academy's dictionary extended it to the inner structure of anything and to the plot of a play or novel.^[19] Moliner records technical senses in biology (the cells and fibres of a tissue), printing (the screen of dots used to reproduce an image) and television (the lines that make up the picture).^[20]

In parts of Chile trama was the coarse imported wool used as weft in weaving ponchos.^[21][22] The early derivative tramo “stretch, section” is of uncertain origin: Corominas thinks it probably comes from trama, but does not rule out the derivation from Latin trames that Covarrubias and the Academy give.^[2][3]

Timeline

• c. 950 – the verb tramar appears in the Glosas Emilianenses.^[2][3]
• before 1300 – an Old Testament translation (Escorial manuscript I.j.8) speaks of stanbre & trama, warp and weft.^[12]
• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz uses trama figuratively in the Libro de buen amor.^[2][12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Spanish–Latin vocabulary has Trama de tela.^[14]
• 1533 – the first record from the Americas, at Nombre de Dios, has the figurative sense: entre (él y Gutiérrez) anda la trama.^[23]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives the word from Latin trames “path”.^[15]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the weft, the silk for weft and the figurative “cunning device”.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology from Latin trama.^[24]
• 1899 – the Academy defines it as the set of threads that, crossed with the warp, form a fabric.^[25]

Meanings

Noun

1. The weft: the set of threads that cross and interlace with the warp (urdimbre) to make a fabric.^[4][1]
2. A kind of silk thread used for the weft.^[4][20]
3. A secret scheme or conspiracy to harm someone: Los periodistas destaparon una trama de sobornos.^[4][26]
4. The inner structure of something, given by the way its parts interlock; the fabric of something.^[4][1]
5. The plot of a novel, play or film: the arrangement of the linked events of the story: La trama de la novela gira en torno a una herencia.^[4][1]
6. (printing) A halftone screen of dots used to reproduce an image;^[20] (television) the set of lines that form the picture.^[20]
7. The flowering and blossom of trees, especially of the olive (olivo).^[4]

Word family

• tramar
• tramo
• entramar

Related words

• Latin trama
• French trame

Usage notes

Trama is also a form of the verb tramar (¿Qué trama tu hermano? “what is your brother up to?”).^[4][1] In Chile the saying no tan grueso, que no es trama told someone to act with more finesse.^[21][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 h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 585
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. trama
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. trama
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
6. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 789
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
8. ^ a b Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
9. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Gómez de Silva, Guido (1988), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua española, México: Fondo de Cultura Económica / El Colegio de México
11. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses
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
13. ^ 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
14. ^ a b 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
15. ^ 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. 1343
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 320
17. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 1065
18. ^ Alemany y Bolufer, José (1917), Diccionario de la lengua española, Barcelona: Ramón Sopena, p. 1601
19. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe
20. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
21. ^ a b Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 212
22. ^ 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. 530
23. ^ Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
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. 1040
25. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 974
26. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial