trillar

Forms

trillar (first-person singular present trillo, first-person singular preterite trillé, past participle trillado)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin tribulō (“to press; to thresh”), through a syncopated *triblāre.^[2][3][4][1] The learned tribular “to afflict” is a doublet.^[5][1]

The same Latin verb is Portuguese trilhar, Galician trillar, Catalan trillar, Italian trebbiare and Romanian treiera.^[6][5][1] The REW and the DCVB take the Catalan verb from Spanish;^[6][7] Corominas notes that Catalan generally says batre for threshing, and that the Catalan verb, used in the west and in Valencia and recorded in 1575, may there go back to Mozarabic.^[6][7][2]

The Latin verb is derived from tribulum (“threshing sledge”), formed from terō (“to rub”) with the instrumental suffix -bulum; these go back to Proto-Indo-European *terh₁- (“to rub”) and *-dʰlom.^[8][1]

Meyer-Lübke saw a difficulty, since sibilare gave silbar, and proposed an Italic dialect form with /f/; he later dropped the idea, and Corominas rejects it, arguing that the conditions differ (the place of the stress, the social level of the word) and that /bl/ > /ʎ/ is certain in other words such as enjullo.^[2] Nascentes still found the treatment of /bl/ unexplained in both Spanish and Portuguese.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the first record to a charter of 1074.^[2][3] The first Castilian text in the CDH, La fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), has la era en que trillan las vacas “the threshing floor where the cows tread out the grain”, and an Oña document of 1237 binds the villagers to two days' labour a year, unu a senbrar e otro a trillar “one to sow and the other to thresh”.^[10]

Semantic evolution

Covarrubias (1611) explains threshing with the trillo, a board set with flints, and records camino trillado, a road much travelled, and figuratively whatever is commonly accepted.^[11] Corominas dates the figurative sense “to wear a track in a road by frequent use” to the 16th century.^[2][3] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) gave threshing, frequenting something, and “to mistreat, mortify”.^[12] Today the verb is also used for wearing out a topic by repetition.^[13][14]

In Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua and Costa Rica it means to hull and sort coffee beans, and in Nicaragua to open a path by passing again and again through the grass.^[15][4] In the Canary Islands trillarse means to catch a finger or other part of the body, as in a door; the TDHLE takes this sense from Portuguese trilhar, recorded from 1846.^[16][17]

Timeline

• 1052 – DEMel lists trillare in a document of Nájera.^[18]
• 1074 – the first record for Corominas, in a charter.^[2][3]
• c. 1200 – La fazienda de Ultra Mar (13th-century copy): cows threshing on the floor.^[10]
• 1237 – an Oña document requires a day of threshing.^[10]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General estoria: non ataras la boca al buey quando trilla.^[19]
• 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin tero and trituro.^[20][21]
• 1570 – the first record from the Americas, in Peru.^[22]
• c. 1580 – the noun trilla.^[3]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records camino trillado.^[11]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades gives the figurative senses “to frequent” and “to mistreat”.^[12]
• 1846 – the Canarian trillarse “to catch a finger” is recorded.^[16]

Meanings

Verb

1. To thresh: to crush the cut grain spread on the threshing floor and separate the grain from the straw.^[4][1]
2. To leave someone battered, to thrash.^[4][1]
3. (colloquial) To frequent or follow something constantly; to beat a path.^[4][1]
4. To wear out a topic or device by overuse: Es un argumento muy trillado.^[13][14][1]
5. (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Costa Rica) To hull, grade and sort coffee beans.^[4][15]
6. (Nicaragua, rural) To open a path through the grass by passing along it repeatedly.^[15]
7. (Canary Islands, also reflexive) To catch or crush a finger or other part of the body.^[17][1]

Word family

• trilla
• trillado
• trillador
• trilladora
• trilladura

Related words

• trillo
• tribular
• Portuguese trilhar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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, 633
3. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. trillo
4. ^ 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. trillar
5. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 6839
6. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ a b Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. trillar
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. trilhar
10. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE
11. ^ 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. 1350
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 355
13. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. trillar
14. ^ a b Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. trillar
15. ^ a b c Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. trillar
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (2021–), Tesoro de los diccionarios históricos de la lengua española (TDHLE): Diccionario histórico (1933–1936), its unpublished slips, Diccionario histórico (1960–1996), DHECan, DHECR, DHEVen, https://www.rae.es/tdhle, p. s.v. trillar
17. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. trillar
18. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
19. ^ 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. trillar
20. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
21. ^ 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
22. ^ 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. trillar