trechar

Forms

trechar (first-person singular present trecho, first-person singular preterite treché, past participle trechado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tractō (“to handle, work at”).^[2][3][1] Corominas follows Menéndez Pidal in this etymology.^[2] Its learned doublet is tratar.^[1][3]

The Latin verb is a frequentative of trahō (“to pull, drag”), formed with the suffix -tō.^[4][1] The origin of the simple verb is unclear.^[1][5]

Older guesses were different: Echegaray derived the verb from estrechar, and Barcia reported Pedro de Alcalá's gloss with an Arabic word for “dried” and the view of Lafuente y Alcántara that it meant “to press”.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor (1330–1343), where it means to open and salt eels and cure them in the air.^[2][8] The same poet has trechón, perhaps a piece of fish so cured.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija has the pronominal trecharse with Latin flaccesco “to wither”, and Pedro de Alcalá glosses it “to dry”.^[2] Echegaray and Barcia give the verb as obsolete.^[6][7] It lived on in the north: in Asturias it is said of sardines opened and spread out like cod.^[2][9] The noun truchuela, cured cod, belongs to the same family, its form altered by association with trucha.^[2][3]

In Leonese the verb has other senses: to drag a pile of firewood down the hillside, to give firewood the shape of a trecha, to heap green broom, and, pronominally, of fruit, to shrivel.^[10] The Academy's dictionary does not include it.^[10]

Timeline

• 1330–1343 – Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor uses it of eels opened and cured.^[2][8]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija records trecharse “to wither”.^[2]
• 1891 – Rato records sardines trechaes in Asturias.^[9]

Meanings

Verb

1. To split open a fish, especially for salting and curing.^[1][3][2]
2. (Asturias) Of sardines, to open them and spread them flat.^[9][2]
3. (León) To drag a pile of firewood down the hillside; to heap firewood or green broom.^[10]
4. (León, pronominal) Of fruit, to shrivel.^[10]

Related words

• tratar
• truchuela
• trecho
• Latin tractō

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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, 575
3. ^ a b c d García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6782
4. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
6. ^ a b Echegaray, Eduardo de (1887–1889), Diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: José María Faquineto, p. 574
7. ^ a b Barcia, Roque (1880–1883), Primer diccionario general etimológico de la lengua española, 5 vols., Madrid: Establecimiento Tipográfico de Álvarez Hermanos, p. 205
8. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. trechar
9. ^ a b c Rato y Hevia, Apolinar de (1891), Vocabulario de las palabras y frases bables que se hablaron antiguamente y de las que hoy se hablan en el Principado de Asturias, Madrid: Manuel G. Hernández, p. 118
10. ^ a b c d Le Men Loyer, Janick (2002–2012), Léxico del leonés actual, 4 vols., León: Centro de Estudios e Investigación San Isidoro; electronic version, Universidad de León, p. s.v. trechar