trigo

Forms

trigo m (plural trigos)^[1] The earliest documents also have tridigo (Leonese charters of 1003 and 1111) and tridicu (Upper Aragon, 1024).^[2] DEMel records the medieval spellings trico and tridgo.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin trīticum (“wheat”).^[2][4][5][1] Corominas describes the sound change as trídigo > tridgo > trigo: the weak /d/ before /g/ was lost by dissimilation from the initial /t/, much as the Latin suffix -āticum first became /-adgo/ before -azgo.^[2] The intermediate form is found in Mozarabic in a Sevillian botanical text of about 1100.^[2] Wagner proposed a dissimilated Latin base with /d/, which is attested in a 6th-century Latin translation of Dioscorides and agrees with tridicu of Old Logudorese, but Corominas holds that it does not explain the Castilian form.^[2] He also rejects Zauner's development through a form with the diphthong /ie/ and Fouché's shortened Vulgar Latin base.^[2]

The Latin word survives only in Portuguese trigo, Spanish, Sardinian trigu and some Rhaeto-Romance and Alpine Lombard dialects;^[6] elsewhere the words are of Celtic origin, such as Catalan blat and French blé, and Italian frumento became the general word in Italy.^[2][6] Other Ibero-Romance forms are Galician trigo and Asturian trigu.^[7]

The Latin noun is derived from terō (“to rub, to grind”), through its participle trītus.^[8][9][1] That verb goes back to Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub”).^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas and the BDELC date the first record to a Leonese document of 964, followed by others of 1095, 1146 and 1147.^[2][4] In a text, La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy) foretells that el cafiz del trigo “a cahíz of wheat” will sell for one penny.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's General Estoria uses the word for the grain in Isaac's blessing, abondo de trigo, de uino & de olio “plenty of wheat, wine and oil”.^[12] Covarrubias in 1611 notes that it is a general name for any grain bread is made from, though it usually means common wheat; he also records color trigueño, between dark and fair.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades calls maize trigo de las Indias “Indian wheat” and records echar por esos trigos, later defined as “to talk nonsense”.^[14][15] In the plural trigos are the wheat fields.^[15][16]

A figurative sense “money, wealth” is in the modern Academy dictionary, and slang dictionaries of about 1900 record it too.^[5][17][18] The Spanish word was taken into many languages of the Americas and the Philippines, such as Tagalog trigo.^[1]

Timeline

• 964 – a Leonese document, the first record.^[2][4]
• 1003 – the form tridigo in a Leonese charter.^[2]
• 1024 – tridicu in an Upper Aragonese document.^[2]
• 1076 – Triguero as a personal name.^[2][4]
• c. 1100 – the intermediate form in Mozarabic, and the derivative triguera.^[2][4]
• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar uses trigo.^[11]
• 1272–1275 – the General Estoria speaks of plenty of wheat, wine and oil.^[12]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin triticum as its equivalent.^[19]
• 1544 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico.^[20]
• early 17th century – the derivative trigueño “wheat-coloured”.^[4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias calls it the general name for bread grains.^[13]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology Latin triticum.^[21]

Meanings

Noun

1. wheat: a genus of cereal grasses with ears of four or more rows of grains, which are ground into the flour used for bread.^[5][1]
2. A grain of wheat; wheat grain collectively: un saco de trigo.^[5]
3. (in the plural) Wheat fields; standing wheat: Los trigos ya amarillean.^[16][15]
4. (figurative) money, wealth.^[5][16]
5. (Álava, in the plural) The plant uva de gato (a stonecrop).^[5]

Word family

• trigal
• trigueño
• triguera
• triguero

Related words

• tritíceo
• Latin trīticum
• Portuguese trigo
• English triticale

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 m Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 632
3. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. trigo
4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. trigo
5. ^ a b c d e f 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. trigo
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. trigu
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ 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 Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. trigo
12. ^ 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. trigo
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. 1349
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. trigo
15. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 718
16. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. trigo
17. ^ Salillas, Rafael (1896), El delincuente español: el lenguaje, Madrid: Victoriano Suárez, p. 339
18. ^ Besses, Luis (c. 1905), Diccionario de argot español o lenguaje jergal gitano, delincuente profesional y popular, Barcelona: Manuel Soler, p. 168
19. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 425
20. ^ 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. trigo
21. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1051