vejiga

Forms

vejiga f (plural vejigas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote vexiga or uexiga;^[2][3] Nebrija spelt it bexiga, as Judeo-Spanish bixiga and Portuguese bexiga have it.^[4][2][3] Forms with a rounded vowel, such as voxiga and bojiga, are used in Upper Aragon and Galicia, and Aragonese also has vechiga.^[4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish vexiga, inherited from Vulgar Latin vessīca, the popular form of Latin vēsīca (“bladder”).^[4][6][7][1] The spelling with -ss- is found in Latin glosses, and all the Romance languages go back to it;^[8][9] Corominas reports that Ernout and Meillet call it an expressive variant, but since the Latin word is obscure and has a third form vēnsīca, he leaves open whether the form with -ss- was the original one.^[4] Nearly all the Romance forms palatalise the -ss-, as Spanish does: Portuguese bexiga, Catalan veixiga, Italian vescica and Romanian bășică.^[4][8][9]

De Vaan, following André, takes the form with a single -s- as the original one and the spelling with -ns- as a later one, and connects it with vissiō (“to fart softly”): the root would be imitative, the sound of a bladder losing its air being compared to a fart, since bladders were used as balloons and bagpipes.^[10] Wiktionary also considers an imitative root related to that verb possible.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest dated record, in the Fueros de Aragón of 1247, has uexigas in the sense “boils” among the plagues of Egypt.^[11] The anatomical sense is found about 1250 in Alfonso X's Lapidario, which says of a stone that presta contra la dolor dela uexiga “it helps against pain of the bladder”.^[12][11] Corominas had only a glossary of about 1400 as his first record.^[4][6]

Semantic evolution

From the 13th century the word named both the organ and a blister or boil on the skin: the General Estoria speaks of the plague of vexigas of the Egyptians, and a 13th-century fuero takes vexigas on the hand as proof of guilt in an ordeal.^[11] Nebrija gave both senses, with the Latin vesica and bulla.^[4][3] The Diccionario de Autoridades added the gall bladder, vexiga de la hiel, a disease of horses' pasterns caused by overwork, and the local use of vexigas for smallpox.^[13] The Academy first gave the Latin vesica as its source in 1884.^[14]

The small bag of sheep's gut that painters used to keep oil colours in also took the name.^[7][15] In the Canaries vejiga is the bag that a male camel in rut pushes out of its mouth, recorded from Viera y Clavijo's dictionary of 1799–1812.^[16] In Spanish America the word is used for a toy balloon and for the inner tube of a football, and as an insult for a foolish or inexperienced person.^[17][7][1]

Timeline

• 1247 – uexigas “boils” in the Fueros de Aragón.^[11]
• c. 1250 – uexiga “bladder” in Alfonso X's Lapidario.^[12][11]
• c. 1275 – the General Estoria tells of the plague of vexigas in Egypt.^[11]
• c. 1400 – vexiga in the Escorial glossary, Corominas's first record.^[4][6]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija writes bexiga.^[4][3]
• 1525 – the word is recorded in Mexico City, for blisters on a horse.^[18]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary derives it from Latin vesica.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The bladder: the muscular, membranous bag in which urine collects.^[7][1]
2. A blister on the skin; synonym of ampolla.^[7][15]
3. A small bubble or pocket of air, gas or liquid formed on any surface: Con la humedad salieron vejigas en la pintura de la pared.^[7][15]
4. (historical) A small bag of sheep's gut in which a painter kept an oil colour.^[7][15]
5. (Uruguay, colloquial) A simple, gullible person.^[7][17]
6. (Guatemala, El Salvador, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Bolivia) A toy balloon.^[17][1]

Word family

• vejigatorio
• vejigoso

Related words

• vesícula
• vesical
• mojiganga
• Latin vēsīca
• Portuguese bexiga

Usage notes

Vejiga de la bilis or vejiga de la hiel is the gall bladder, now usually vesícula biliar;^[15][1] vejiga natatoria is the swim bladder of fish.^[7][15][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. vejiga
3. ^ a b c d 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. vejiga
4. ^ 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, 757
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 7138
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vejiga
7. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. vejiga
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9276
9. ^ a b 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. 9, 81
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 c d e f Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. vejiga
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. vejiga
13. ^ Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 471
14. ^ 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. 1075
15. ^ a b c d e f Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vejiga
16. ^ 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. vejiga
17. ^ 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. vejiga
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. vejiga