verga

Forms

verga f (plural vergas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote verga, uerga and sometimes the Latinising virga or vyrga.^[2] Wiktionary also gives berga.^[1] Old Aragonese had vierga.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin virga (“shoot, twig; rod”).^[4][5][1] The stressed short i of the Latin word gives ⟨e⟩, as in Portuguese verga, Galician verga, Catalan verga, Italian verga and French verge; Romanian vargă is the same word.^[6][3][4] The French word was borrowed by Spanish as verja (1591), which in Cervantes's day meant each bar of a grille.^[4][7]

The sense “penis” goes back to Late Latin: Niermeyer records it in Medieval Latin, and the DHLF dates it to Low Latin.^[8][9]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain.^[10][11] It has been derived from Proto-Italic *wizgā and compared with Germanic words for sticks and bundles, Old Norse visk (“wisp”) and Old High German wisc (“wisp”); de Vaan thinks only these Germanic forms are close enough, and rejects the old link with a root “to weave”.^[10] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *wisgeh₂ (“flexible rod or stick”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas dates the word 1220–1250.^[4] The CDH's first record is in the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (c. 1200, in a 13th-century copy), where it is Moses' rod, which turns into a serpent: the Lord asks what he has in his hand and he answers Verga “a rod”.^[12][2] Berceo uses it for a staff and for the rod of Aaron, and Alfonso X's Lapidario already has the sense “penis”.^[13][12][14]

Semantic evolution

In 1611 Covarrubias gives the sense “rod”, the steel bow of a crossbow and the male member.^[15] Autoridades says that in the sense “rod” it was little used except at sea, where it named the yards of the masts.^[16] The Academy put the anatomical sense first from 1884 on, and today marks the sense “rod, thin branch” as obsolete.^[17][5] Other technical senses are the grooved lead strip that holds window glass, recorded by Terreros, and the verga toledana, an old measure of two cubits.^[18][5]

In much of Latin America the word is vulgar and has a wide range of uses: an interjection of surprise or anger in Mexico, El Salvador and Venezuela; a blow, a thing or a matter; drunkenness in Central America and Bolivia; a whip made from a bull's pizzle; and in Mexico and Venezuela a man of great worth.^[5][19] In the Canaries verga is a thick wire, a sense the historical dictionary of Canarian Spanish traces to Portuguese and dates from 1742.^[20][21]

Timeline

• c. 1200 – the Fazienda de Ultra Mar (in a 13th-century copy) uses it for Moses' rod.^[12]
• 1220–1250 – Corominas's first record.^[4]
• 1250–1279 – Alfonso X's Lapidario uses uerga for the penis.^[14]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija glosses verga o vara with Latin virga and fustis.^[22]
• 1522 – first record in the Americas, vergas de ballesta “crossbow bows” in Panama.^[23]
• 1591 – Spanish borrows verja from French verge.^[4]
• 1611 – Covarrubias records the senses “rod”, “crossbow bow” and “male member”.^[15]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades restricts the sense “rod” to seafaring.^[16]
• 1742 – first Canarian record of verga “thick wire”.^[20]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology “Del lat. virga” and puts the anatomical sense first.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. (vulgar) The penis.^[5][1][24]
2. (weaponry) The steel bow of a crossbow.^[5][1]
3. A rod or long thin stick (vara).^[5][1]
4. A grooved strip of lead that holds the panes of a window.^[5][24]
5. (nautical) A yard: a spar fixed across a mast to which the head of a sail is bent: Los marineros subieron a las vergas.^[5][1]
6. (Venezuela) A whip made of a dried bull's pizzle (vergajo).^[5][19]
7. (obsolete) A thin branch.^[5]
8. (Latin America, vulgar) A thing or matter; a blow; drunkenness.^[19][1]
9. (Canaries) A thick wire.^[21][20]

Interjection

1. (Mexico, El Salvador, Venezuela, vulgar) Expresses surprise, protest, annoyance or rejection.^[5]

Word family

• envergar
• vergajo
• envergadura
• vergajazo
• vergón

Related words

• verja
• vara
• vírgula
• Latin virga
• Portuguese verga

Usage notes

The word is vulgar in most of Latin America, where it forms many expressions such as a la verga and valer verga “to be worthless”.^[1][19] Vergas en alto is a nautical phrase for a ship ready to sail.^[5][25] The DLE has a second headword verga only in the phrase uva verga, with no definition of its own.^[5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. verga
3. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. virga
4. ^ a b c d e f Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. verga
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. verga
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
7. ^ Bénaben, Michel (2000), Dictionnaire étymologique de l'espagnol, Paris: Ellipses, p. s.v. verga
8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ 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
11. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
12. ^ 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. verga
13. ^ Lanchetas, Rufino (1900), Gramática y vocabulario de las obras de Gonzalo de Berceo, Madrid: Sucesores de Rivadeneyra, p. 785
14. ^ 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. verga
15. ^ a b Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de (1611), Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española, Madrid: Luis Sánchez (Biblioteca Wordkers transcription, CC BY 4.0), p. 1381
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 463
17. ^ 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. 1082
18. ^ Terreros y Pando, Esteban de (1786–1793), Diccionario castellano con las voces de ciencias y artes y sus correspondientes de las tres lenguas francesa, latina e italiana, 4 vols., Madrid: Viuda de Ibarra, p. 3, 782
19. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. verga
20. ^ a b c 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. verga
21. ^ a b Academia Canaria de la Lengua (2010), Diccionario básico de canarismos, Santa Cruz de Tenerife; online at https://www.academiacanarialengua.org, p. s.v. verga
22. ^ Nebrija, Antonio de (1513), Vocabulario español-latino, Salamanca, ed. Marina Vidal Díez (2007), Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, p. 429
23. ^ 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. verga
24. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. verga
25. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 739