trufa

Forms

trufa f (plural trufas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old Occitan trufa (“truffle; jest, nonsense”), which comes from Vulgar Latin tufĕra, a variant of Latin tūber (“swelling; a kind of truffle”).^[2][3][4][1] The Old Occitan word is recorded in the troubadours from about 1200, both for the fungus and in the figurative sense “foolishness, idle talk, jest”.^[3] Corominas takes the Spanish word from Occitan because the /f/ was never aspirated, as an inherited Castilian /f/ would have been.^[3]

The Vulgar Latin form is found in glosses, where it translates a Greek word for the truffle.^[3][5] Its /f/ for the classical /b/ is put down to an Italic dialect.^[3] Corominas also writes it tofera, and he lists the older Aragonese túfera of some dialects of Aragon as another outcome of it.^[3][6] Other outcomes are French truffe, itself taken from Occitan, and Catalan tòfona, earlier Old Catalan tòfera at the end of the 15th century.^[5][7] Italian tartufo continues terrae tuber (“swelling of the earth”).^[3][6]

De Vaan finds no good etymology for the Latin word.^[8] He compares Greek and Old Norse words for a plant and a hillock, and the root Proto-Indo-European *tewh₂- (“to swell”), but says the ending is hard to explain.^[8] Wiktionary takes the root as probable.^[1]

Corominas sees no reason to doubt that the fungus and the jest are one word: a small tuber dug up by dogs and shepherds was a natural name for a trifle.^[3] Rohlfs held that the verb trufar was a separate onomatopoeic creation, which Corominas rejects.^[3] García de Diego, on the other hand, derives the sense “deceit” from the verb and puts it with truhán.^[9] The Academy's 1884 dictionary had two entries, the “lie” from Italian truffa and the fungus from French.^[10]

Earliest recorded meaning

The figurative sense came first.^[3] In Juan Fernández de Heredia's Aragonese translation of Orosius (1376–1396) the Gauls vinieron en truffa de los romanos “became a laughing-stock to the Romans”.^[11] In his Plutarch (1379–1384) a youth answers Estas paraulas son trufas “These words are nonsense”.^[11] The derivatives are older: Berceo already has trufador “swindler, mocker” and trufería “roguery”.^[3][4] The trupha of the Fuero de Plasencia (c. 1300), meat the Jews reject, is another word, which Corriente puts under trefe.^[11][12]

Semantic evolution

Corominas finds the sense “fib, jest” from the 15th century, in the Crónica de Juan II quoted by Autoridades.^[3] Autoridades defined trufa only as a lie or deception made up for fun, and called it an Italian word.^[13] The Academy kept this sense alone in 1817.^[14]

The fungus came in late, as a cooking Gallicism; the traditional names were turma and criadilla de tierra.^[3] Terreros said that people in Old Castile called truffles trufa, and a list of foods from overseas printed in Madrid in 1766 uses the word.^[3] The Academy added it in 1843, for the name used en algunos pueblos de Castilla “in some towns of Castile”.^[15][3] In 1869 the truffle itself was described as a dark tuber, foreign to Spain, finer than the native one.^[16] Today the word also names a chocolate cream made with butter and the sweets made with it, and a dog's nose.^[2][17] The sense “lie” survives.^[2]

Timeline

• 1220–1250 – the derivative trufador is found in Berceo.^[4][3]
• 1376–1396 – Juan Fernández de Heredia uses truffa for mockery in his translation of Orosius.^[11]
• 15th century – the Crónica de Juan II uses trufa for a plain lie.^[3][13]
• 1607 – first record of the verb trufar “to joke”.^[4]
• 1766 – a list of overseas foods printed in Madrid uses trufa for the fungus.^[3][4]
• 1843 – the Academy adds the fungus sense, as a word of some towns of Castile.^[15]
• 1858 – first record in the Americas, at Bogotá: comiendo trufas i faisanes.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy splits the word into two entries, one from Italian, the other from French.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. A truffle: a very aromatic kind of underground fungus of the genus Tuber, used to flavour food.^[2][17][1]
2. A sweet made of truffle paste rolled in cacao powder or chocolate strands.^[2][19]
3. A paste made of unrefined chocolate and butter (mantequilla), used in confectionery: un pastel relleno de trufa.^[2][17]
4. A lie (embuste), a fib.^[2]
5. The nose of a dog.^[2][17]

Word family

• trufar
• trufador

Related words

• tubérculo
• Latin tuber
• French truffe
• Catalan tòfona

References

1. ^ a b c d e Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. trufa
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 677
4. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. trufa
5. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. truffe
6. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 6896
7. ^ Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 8, 527
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. tūber
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. art. 6885
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1056
11. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. trufa
12. ^ Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 461
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, s.v. trufa
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 867
15. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 722
16. ^ Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 770
17. ^ a b c d Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. trufa
18. ^ 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. trufa
19. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. trufa