valle

Forms

valle m (plural valles)^[1] Old Spanish had the shortened form val beside valle (Berceo, the Libro de Alexandre, Juan Ruiz); it survives in place names.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish valle, inherited from Latin vallis (“valley”).^[2][4][5][1] The shortened val appears beside it from the earliest charters.^[2]

The same Latin word is Portuguese vale, Galician val, Catalan vall, Occitan val, French val, Italian valle and Romanian vale.^[6][7] The Latin noun was always feminine, as it still is in Catalan and most other Romance languages; only French, Portuguese and Spanish made it masculine, probably after the opposite word monte.^[2][6] Place names such as ⟨Valbuena⟩ keep the old feminine.^[2]

De Vaan finds no certain etymology for the Latin word: a link with the Greek name of Elis, perhaps “lowland”, is possible, while Germanic and Baltic words for “round” are hard to reconcile with the Latin form.^[8] Wiktionary calls the origin disputed and mentions a possible root Proto-Indo-European *welH- (“to turn, roll”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is the shortened val in a charter of 912; the full valle, written valge, is found in 1048.^[2][4] The Cantar de mio Cid has llegava a un val “he came to a valley” (verse 974).^[9] Corominas warns that in the early charters it is often unclear whether the notary meant to write Spanish or Latin.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already shows the three senses the DLE gives today: a plain between mountains, the basin of a river, and the villages and hamlets of a valley (un uall a que dizen Cangas).^[10][5] His General Estoria has valle de lágrimas “vale of tears”, which Autoridades explains as this world, full of hardships.^[10][11] The same dictionary records hasta el valle de Josafat “until the Last Judgement”, said by people who do not expect to meet again.^[11]

The Academy noted in 1884 that the word had also been used as a feminine.^[12] In Puerto Rico valle meant a rural settlement from the 16th century.^[13] In Cespedosa and Salamanca it is the hollow between furrows that the plough opens.^[2][14] In Spain it now also qualifies off-peak times and fares (tarifa valle), and in Paraguay it means a region, or a fellow countryman.^[15][16][17]

Timeline

• 912 – first record, as val, in a charter.^[2][4]
• 945 – first record of the diminutive vallejo.^[2][4]
• 1048 – the full form, written valge.^[2]
• c. 1140 – the Cantar de mio Cid has val.^[9]
• 1272–1275 – the General Estoria uses valle de lágrimas.^[10]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija gives Latin vallis and convallis.^[18]
• 1514 – el valle del Otuao, a settlement in Puerto Rico.^[13]
• 1611 – Covarrubias derives it from Latin vallis.^[19]
• 1739 – Autoridades adds the phrase hasta el valle de Josafat.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A valley: a plain between mountains or hills: El pueblo está en el fondo de un valle muy verde.^[5][1]
2. The basin of a river.^[5]
3. The villages, hamlets and farmsteads of a valley taken together.^[5]
4. A trough: the lowest point of a curve or wave.^[15][20]
5. (Spain, in apposition) off-peak: horario valle, tarifa valle.^[15][16]
6. (Paraguay, popular) A region; a person from the same place as another.^[17]

Word family

• vallejo
• vallejuelo

Related words

• val
• Latin vallis

Usage notes

DICCA-XV records a separate valle “moat, palisade”, taken from Catalan vall, from Latin vallum.^[18] Set phrases: valle de lágrimas “vale of tears” and hasta el valle de Josafat.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e 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, 736
3. ^ Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1908–1914), Tesoro de la lengua castellana: origen y vida del lenguaje, 12 vols., Madrid: Perlado, Páez y Compañía, p. s.v. valle
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. valle
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. valle
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7025
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b Cejador y Frauca, Julio (1929), Vocabulario medieval castellano, Madrid: Librería y Casa Editorial Hernando, p. s.v. valle
10. ^ a b c 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. valle
11. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 417
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1070
13. ^ a b Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. valle
14. ^ Lamano y Beneite, José de (1915), El dialecto vulgar salmantino, Salamanca: Tipografía Popular, p. 657
15. ^ a b c Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. valle
16. ^ a b Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. valle
17. ^ 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. valle
18. ^ 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. valle
19. ^ Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1, 1367
20. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. valle