travieso

Forms

travieso (feminine traviesa, masculine plural traviesos, feminine plural traviesas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote traviesso and trauiesso beside travieso.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin trānsversus (“lying across, oblique”).^[3][4][5][1] The Libro de Alexandre also has a form travierso (“difficult, bad”).^[6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese travesso, Catalan través, French travers and Italian traverso.^[7][1] The Latin adjective is the past participle of trānsvertō (“to turn across”), formed with trāns- like adversus.^[8][1] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Italic *trānsworssos.^[1]

The sense “restless, mischievous” grew out of the spatial one.^[9][10] Bénaben explains that a mischievous child is one who does not go straight and does things crosswise;^[9][10] Vox speaks of the spatial idea turning into that of an obstacle.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is Berceo (1220–1250), where it means “bold, malicious”.^[3][4] Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas (1254) uses trauiessos of unruly sons: aura fijos trauiessos “he will have unruly sons”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose shows the full range of the medieval word: crosswise (curtains laid traviessas over the tent), rough and dangerous (of country full of rocks and mountains), unruly, and dissolute.^[11] A 15th-century vocabulary uses travieso of a child born outside marriage, and Nebrija renders it with Latin perversus.^[3][12]

Covarrubias (1611) defines it as restless and doing things that deserve a scolding, typical of young people.^[13] Autoridades gives the literal sense in ir a campo travieso “to go across country”, the sense “restless, mischievous”, said mostly of children, and “given to vice, especially sensuality”.^[14] The Academy marked the sense of vice as old in 1869, and the dictionary now gives it as rare.^[15][5] In Mexico it was used from 1575 of a man given to affairs with women.^[16] The sense of children is now the main one.^[5][10]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – Berceo uses it for “bold, malicious”.^[3][4]
• 1254 – Alfonso X's Judizios de las estrellas uses it for unruly children.^[11]
• 1272–1275 – the General Estoria uses it literally, for curtains laid across a tent.^[11]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses traviesso with Latin perversus and versutus.^[12]
• 1575 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias explains it as “restless, unruly”, typical of the young.^[13]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades records ir a campo travieso and the sense of children's mischief.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology from Latin transversus.^[17]

Meanings

Adjective

1. naughty, mischievous: restless and unruly, said mostly of children: El niño más travieso de la clase escondió la tiza.^[5][1]
2. shrewd, subtle.^[5][18]
3. Of things: lively, restless.^[5]
4. Lying crosswise or to one side.^[5]
5. (rare) Fond of mischief of a sensual kind.^[5]

Noun

1. (obsolete) A crossing (travesía), the distance between two points by land or sea.^[5]
2. (El Salvador, humorous) A swig of liquor.^[19]

Related words

• travesura
• traviesa
• través
• atravesar
• transversal
• Portuguese travesso

Usage notes

The feminine traviesa is also a noun of its own, the sleeper that carries the rails of a railway, and survives in a campo traviesa “across country”.^[5][18] The old adverbial phrase de travieso meant “crosswise”, and in law “in the collateral line”.^[5][20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. travieso
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 791
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. verter
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. travieso
6. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1905–1906), La lengua de Cervantes: gramática y diccionario de la lengua castellana en El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, 2 vols., Madrid: Jaime Ratés, p. 1115
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8860
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ a b c Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. travieso
10. ^ a b c d Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. travieso
11. ^ 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. travieso
12. ^ 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, p. s.v. travieso
13. ^ 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. 1347
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 345
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 764
16. ^ 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. traviejo
17. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1047
18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. travieso
19. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. travieso
20. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 1073