vena

Forms

vena f (plural venas)^[1] Old Spanish texts often write it uena.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish vena, inherited from Latin vēna (“blood vessel”).^[4][5][6][1] Corominas notes that it has been in general use in every period and is common to all the Romance languages.^[4] The same word is Portuguese veia, Galician vea, Asturian vena, Aragonese vena, Catalan vena, French veine, Italian vena and Romanian vână.^[7][4][1] Portuguese also formed a masculine veio “vein of ore, streak; brook”.^[4]

The origin of the Latin word is unknown.^[8][9] De Vaan lists several proposals: a derivative of *h₂weh₁- (“to blow”), since the ancients compared the veins to air pipes; a root meaning “to convey”, such as *weǵʰ-; or a Proto-Indo-European adjective *wes-no- (“of blood”), related to Avestan words for “blood”.^[8] Wiktionary takes the last to be the one de Vaan prefers.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The earliest text record is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), retelling Jacob's struggle with the angel: non comen fijos de Israel la vena del anca “the children of Israel do not eat the sinew of the thigh”.^[3] The Fuero de Zorita (1218–c. 1250) grants the town its lands con uenas de plata et de fierro “with veins of silver and iron”.^[3] Corominas's first record is the Poema de Fernán González (third quarter of the 13th century), in the sense “vein of ore”, a secondary sense that already existed in classical Latin; the glossaries of Toledo and the Escorial have the anatomical sense.^[4][5]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's prose already has the blood vessel, the vein of ore, the veins of leaves and the channels of water under the earth.^[2] The anatomical word long covered every blood vessel: Nebrija distinguishes a vena del arca (aorta) and a vena de aire (artery), and the DTME dates the specialised sense “vein”, as opposed to “artery”, only to the 17th century.^[4][10] Autoridades in 1739 defines it as a vessel of a single coat, unlike the artery.^[11]

Covarrubias in 1611 has acertarle en la vena “to hit on someone's liking”, darle la vena “to be seized by madness” and tener vena “to be a ready poet”.^[12] Autoridades records vena de loco, a fit of madness or a sudden whim.^[4] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 has poetic inspiration and the coloured streaks of stones and woods.^[13] In Ecuador vena is the stem of a creeper used as rope, or a tough fibre in meat.^[14] In Honduras it is a vulgar word for the penis.^[15]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – vena in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar.^[3]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita speaks of veins of silver and iron.^[3]
• third quarter of the 13th century – the Poema de Fernán González (Corominas's first record).^[4][5]
• 1272–1275 – Alfonso X's General estoria uses it for the veins of leaves and for underground water.^[2]
• 1539 – first record in the Americas, in New Granada, for the stems of creepers.^[16]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records darle la vena and tener vena.^[12]
• 1739 – Autoridades defines the vein against the artery.^[11]
• 1817 – the Academy adds poetic inspiration.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A vein: each of the vessels that carry the blood back to the heart: La enfermera no encontraba la vena.^[6][1]
2. A lode or vein of metal.^[6]
3. Each of the bundles of fibres that stand out on the underside of a leaf.^[6]
4. A fibre of the pod of certain legumes.^[6]
5. A band of material set in a mass from which it differs in quality or colour.^[6]
6. A natural channel through which water runs underground.^[6]
7. Each of the wavy or branching coloured streaks of certain stones and woods.^[6]
8. Poetic inspiration, a gift for writing verse: tiene vena de poeta.^[6]
9. A mood, a changeable disposition of mind.^[6]
10. (zoology) A thickening of the cuticle, more or less branched, in the wings of insects.^[6]

Word family

• venaje
• venático
• venero
• venoso

Related words

• Latin vēna
• Portuguese veia
• French veine

Usage notes

Darle a alguien la vena (por algo) is to be seized by a sudden, often odd impulse: Le dio la vena de pintar la casa de verde.^[17][12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. vena
3. ^ a b c d e Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. vena
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 764
5. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vena
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. vena
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. vena
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
9. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. vena
10. ^ Real Academia Nacional de Medicina (2011), Diccionario de términos médicos, Madrid: Editorial Médica Panamericana; online at https://dtme.ranm.es, p. s.v. vena
11. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 438
12. ^ a b c Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1375
13. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 881
14. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 255
15. ^ Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. vena
16. ^ 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. vena
17. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. vena