ubre

Forms

ubre f (plural ubres)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin ūber (“teat, udder”).^[2][3][1] Of the Romance languages only Spanish and Portuguese (Portuguese ubre, beside the learned úbere) kept the Latin word, together with some dialects of northern Italy, the Rhaeto-Romance area and eastern France.^[2][4] The REW adds old Italian uvero and Romanian uger, the Romanian word crossed with suge (“to suck”).^[5]

Corominas explains Catalan braguer, the Catalan word for the udder of cows and sows, as a derivative of a lost Catalan *ubre.^[2] The form with the article was wrongly divided, giving breguer, still the form around Tortosa.^[2]

The Latin noun is from Proto-Italic *ouðer, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ówHdʰr̥ (“udder”), an r/n-stem.^[1][6] Its cognates include Sanskrit ऊधर् (ū́dhar), Ancient Greek οὖθαρ (oûthar), Old English ūder and the English word udder.^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Libro de los fueros de Castiella (before 1284, DEMel dates it c. 1260) lists among the market dues sennos pares de vbres, sy las ouyere en el mercado de la carnesçería “a pair of udders each, if there are any at the meat market”.^[7][8] Corominas found no record before Nebrija, who has ubre de puerca parida “udder of a sow that has farrowed” and ubre, teta de parida “teat of a female that has given birth”.^[2][9]

Semantic evolution

Corominas notes that Horace already kept uber for the teat of animals and mamma for a woman's breast, as Spanish does, though most Latin authors made no such distinction.^[2] The Diccionario de Autoridades defined the word as the hard fat animals have inside the teats; the Academy later defined it as the teat of female quadrupeds (1869), and in 1899 as each teat of a female mammal and the set of them together, the two senses of today.^{[2][10][11][12]}

Because the Latin noun was neuter, Portuguese and Galician made the word masculine; in León and in the Canaries el ubre is common, a use a Canarian purist of 1918 told his readers to avoid.^[2][13][14] In Honduras ubre is a well-paid government post, and in Puerto Rico a woman's bust.^[15][16]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the CDH's earliest hit is hubre gruesso in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar, known from a 13th-century copy.^[7]
• 1260–1284 – the Libro de los fueros de Castiella lists vbres sold at the meat market.^[7][8]
• 1492 – Nebrija's Latin–Spanish dictionary glosses Latin sumen as the udder of a sow.^[9]
• 1571 – the first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[17]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it as the fat inside the teats of animals.^[10][2]
• 1869 – the Academy defines it as the teat of female quadrupeds.^[11]
• 1899 – the Academy gives its Latin etymon and the two modern senses.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. Each of the teats of a female mammal.^[3]
2. The set of teats together, the udder: La vaca tenía la ubre llena.^[3][1]
3. (Honduras) A well-paid government job.^[15]

Word family

• ubrera

Related words

• ubérrimo
• exuberante
• Latin ūber
• Portuguese úbere

Usage notes

Ubre is feminine in the standard language (la ubre); masculine el ubre is regional, in León and the Canaries.^[3][13][14]

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 Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 707
3. ^ a b c d 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. ubre
4. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 3422
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9026
6. ^ 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
7. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. ubre
8. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. ubre
9. ^ 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. ubre
10. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. s.v. ubre
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1869), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 11th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de Don Manuel Rivadeneyra, p. 772
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 994
13. ^ a b 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. ubre
14. ^ 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. ubre
15. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. ubre
16. ^ Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. ubre
17. ^ 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. ubre