yegua

Forms

yegua f (plural yeguas, masculine caballo, masculine plural caballos)^[1] The oldest records have egua (949) and yegua (1170); Old Spanish texts also write iegua and eguas.^[2][3] Leonese charters of the 13th century still write egua.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish yegua, inherited from Latin equa (“mare”), the feminine of equus (“horse”).^[2][5][6][1] The feminine survived in all the Romance languages or their dialects, while the masculine was replaced everywhere by caballus, whence caballo.^[2][7] Cabrera in 1837 already explained the initial sound of the word as a diphthong that grew out of the first vowel of the older form.^[8]

The same Latin word is Portuguese égua, Galician egua, Aragonese yeugua, Catalan egua or euga, Occitan èga and Romanian iapă.^[9][10][11]

The Latin word for “horse” continues Proto-Italic *ekwos, from Proto-Indo-European *h₁éḱwos (“horse”), seen also in Ancient Greek ἵππος (híppos).^[1][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas finds egua in a charter of 949 and yegua in one of 1170, both from Oelschläger's list.^[2][5] The sense was the female horse from the start: the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes (1218–c. 1250) fines whoever puts another man's stallion to his mare without the owner's knowledge: tod aquel que cauallo ageno asu yegua, el sennor del cauallo no sabiente, echare.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The word belongs to Castilian of every period.^[2] Alfonso X's laws list the tithe paid on mares beside that on cows and sheep.^[13] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) quotes the Quijote and the proverb Donde hay yeguas, potros nacen.^[14] The Academy's 1884 edition explains the proverb as a warning not to wonder at what comes naturally, and records yegua caponera, the mare that leads a herd of mules or horses, and the phrase andar con uno a mátame la yegua, matarte he el potro, to quarrel stubbornly and needlessly.^[15]

In Spanish America the word has many figurative uses: a coarse woman in Cuba and Uruguay, a cigarette butt in Central America, a stupid person in Central America and Puerto Rico, and in Chile an adjective meaning “huge”.^[6][16] In Mexico it is a name for several large beans.^[17] It was borrowed into Tagalog yegwa and into several languages of Mexico and Guatemala.^[1]

Timeline

• 949 – egua in a charter, the first record of the word.^[2][3]
• 1170 – first record of the form yegua.^[2][5]
• 1218–c. 1250 – the Fuero de Zorita de los Canes uses yegua for the mare.^[4]
• 1335 – yeguarizo “keeper of mares” is first recorded.^[5]
• 1490 – yeguada “herd of mares” and yegüerizo appear, in Alfonso de Palencia.^[5][2]
• 1512 – first record from the Americas, in Puerto Rico.^[18]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the word with the proverb about mares and colts.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy's dictionary first gives the etymology from Latin equa.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. mare: the female of the horse.^[6][1]
2. A mare of five or more years, as opposed to a potra.^[6]
3. (Cuba, Uruguay, derogatory, colloquial) A coarse woman; also used as an adjective.^[6][1]
4. (Guatemala, Honduras) A cigarette butt.^[6][1]
5. (Cuba, masculine) A homosexual man.^[6]
6. (Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico) A stupid person; also used as an adjective.^[6][16]

Word family

• yeguada
• yegüerizo
• yeguarizo
• yegüero

Related words

• yeguar
• ecuestre
• equino
• équido
• equitación
• Portuguese égua
• Latin equus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. 6, 774
3. ^ a b Diccionario del Español Medieval electrónico (DEMel), data publication 2026 (CC BY-SA), Universität Rostock, p. s.v. yegua
4. ^ 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. yegua
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. yegua
6. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. yegua
7. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. yegua
8. ^ Cabrera, Ramón (1837), Diccionario de etimologías de la lengua castellana, 2 vols., Madrid: Imprenta de Marcos Bueno, p. s.v. yegua
9. ^ Wikcionario (Spanish Wiktionary), es.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. yegua
10. ^ 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. 3, 228
11. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. 1269
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
13. ^ 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. yegua
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 542
15. ^ 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. 1103
16. ^ a b Malaret, Augusto (1946), Diccionario de americanismos, 3rd ed., Buenos Aires: Emecé, p. 824
17. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 289
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. yegua