verruga

Forms

verruga f (plural verrugas)^[1] Old Spanish wrote uerruga and berruga;^[2][3] Nebrija has berruga.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish verruga, inherited from Latin verrūca (“hillock; wart”).^[3][4][5][1] The word was kept in every Romance language except Romanian: Portuguese verruga, Galician verruga, Catalan berruga, French verrue and Italian verruca.^[3][6][7] The REW and Corominas also list Basque marroka, and Ladino baruga is the form of the Sephardim of Bosnia.^[3][6]

The form with ⟨b⟩, found in Nebrija, in Catalan and in the Provençal of the Rhône and Marseille, is already written in a Latin–Anglo-Saxon glossary in a 9th-century manuscript;^[3][8] Corominas compares the same change in other words with /rr/ such as barrer, verraco and barrena.^[3][8] Corominas also suggests that berrueco “crag” may come from the same word, keeping the older Latin sense “hillock”.^[3]

The Latin word meant “a steep place, height” in Cato and later “wart”.^[9][10] De Vaan derives it from *we/ors-u- (“hill, top”), from Proto-Indo-European *u(e/o)rs-u- (“height, top”), with cognates such as Old Church Slavonic врьхъ (vrĭxŭ, “top”).^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's first record is the Moamín of 1250 (in a copy of the second half of the 13th century), a treatise on hunting birds, which says that birds with uerrugas en las palmas “warts on the soles” are very hard to cure.^[2] About the same time Alfonso X's Lapidario names a stone that heals warts.^[2][12] DEMel records uerruga in the Romance confirmation (1252–1284) of the Latin fuero of Valle de Fenar.^[13] Corominas dates it only to about 1400, from the glossary of El Escorial, spelt veruga.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

Alfonso X's General Estoria (c. 1275) tells that Aaron had a berruga on his forehead and Moses one on his nose.^[2] The Libro de Palladio (1380–1385) uses the word for the knots of fig trees.^[2] In the Americas the word appears in Michoacán in 1541, and in 1571 a Peruvian text tells of many Spaniards dying of warts that grew on them; the DAMER records verruga peruana in Peru.^[14][15]

The Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) described a wart as a small, hard, round tumour, like a callus, mostly on the hands.^[16] In 1884 the Academy added the figurative sense of a troublesome person or thing one cannot get rid of, and in 1899 the swelling on a plant caused by sap.^[17][18] In Central America it has meant a sinecure or savings, and in Guatemala it is a disease of cattle.^[19][15]

Timeline

• 1250 – uerrugas in the Moamín.^[2]
• 1254–1260 – berruga in the Judizios de las estrellas.^[2]
• c. 1275 – the General Estoria tells of Aaron's and Moses's warts.^[2]
• c. 1400 – veruga in the glossary of El Escorial;^[3][4] Corominas's first record.^[3][4]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija writes berruga, Latin verruca.^[20]
• 1541 – first record in the Americas, in Michoacán.^[14]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades defines it.^[16]
• 1884 – the Academy adds the figurative sense “nuisance”.^[17]
• 1899 – the Academy adds the plant swelling.^[18]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wart: a small, usually round growth on the skin: Le salió una verruga en el dedo.^[5][1]
2. (botany) A swelling on the surface of a plant caused by a build-up of sap.^[5][21]
3. (colloquial) A troublesome person or thing that one cannot get rid of; a nuisance.^[5][22]
4. (Peru) Short for verruga peruana.^[15]
5. (El Salvador) Savings.^[15]

Word family

• verrugoso
• verrugo
• averrugado

Related words

• berrueco
• verrucaria
• Latin verrūca
• Catalan berruga

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 Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. verruga
3. ^ 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, 791
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. verruga
5. ^ 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. verruga
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 9241
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
8. ^ 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. 1, 773
9. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ 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)
13. ^ Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock
14. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
15. ^ a b c d Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer
16. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 466
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)
18. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía
19. ^ Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 813
20. ^ 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
21. ^ Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
22. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial