yesca

Forms

yesca f (plural yescas)^[1] Nebrija writes iesca; the Salamanca dialect has diezca and Asturian esca.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish yesca, inherited from Latin ēsca (“food; bait”).^[5][6][7][1] In Late Latin, from the 4th century on, the word also meant “tinder”, properly “food of the fire”;^[8][9][1] Isidore of Seville already explained it so.^[6][5] The Latin noun belongs to edō (“to eat”), from Proto-Indo-European *h₁ed- (“to eat”).^[8][9][1]

In 1906 the Germanist Gundermann argued that the Latin word in the sense “tinder” was a Germanic one kept only in Romance, because two Greek physicians of the 6th century, Aetios and Alexander of Tralles, describe cautery with tinder as a barbarian custom.^[6] Meyer-Lübke, Walde and Kluge accepted the idea, but Brüch refuted it, followed by Wartburg, Hofmann and Meyer-Lübke himself in the 3rd edition of the REW, and Corominas finds none of Gundermann's arguments sound.^[6]

The same Latin word is Portuguese isca, Catalan esca, Old French esche, Italian esca and Romanian iască.^[6][10][11] The Castilian diphthong ye- supposes an open, short e;^[1] Corominas notes that most Romance forms need this vowel, and finds it already in the spelling ⟨gesca⟩ of a Latin glossary of the 8th–9th centuries.^[6] He explains the i of the Portuguese word by the Greek pronunciation of the physicians, who used tinder for cautery, while Brüch thought of the influence of viscum (“mistletoe”).^[6] The learned esca is a doublet.^[1][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Alfonso X's General Estoria (c. 1275) names it with the other tools for making fire: un eslavón e su esquero e su yesca e su pedrenal “a fire steel and his pouch and his tinder and his flint”.^[12][13] The BDELC dates the first record about 1280; the DCECH gives only Nebrija's vocabulary.^[5][6]

Semantic evolution

Nebrija distinguishes iesca de huego (Latin fomes) from iesca de hongo, a dried fungus.^[6][2] Classical writers use it in figures of passion: Cervantes's Galatea has yesca me han hecho al invisible fuego “they have made me tinder for the invisible fire”, and a text of 1599 calls poverty bad tinder for kindling friendships.^[6] The Autoridades records these figurative uses, the incentive of any passion and, in jocular speech, anything that makes one want to drink, especially wine.^[14][6] From 1843 the Academy adds the plural yescas for the flint, steel and tinder used to make fire.^[15]

In Guatemala and El Salvador it is slang for marijuana, and in Bolivia it describes a person with little money;^[16] in Chile acabársele la yesca a uno means to run out of money.^[17] In Puerto Rico it is the dry fibrous husk of the coconut.^[18][19] In Andalusia arrimar yesca means to give a beating, and ¡yesca! was a warning cry in prisons.^[20]

Timeline

• 4th century – Latin esca is first used for tinder.^[5][6]
• c. 1223 – the CDH's earliest hit, in the Semejanza del mundo, a text known from a later manuscript.^[12]
• c. 1275 – Alfonso X's General Estoria.^[12][13]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija's Vocabulario; the derivative esquero, the pouch for the tinder, is recorded the same year.^[6][5]
• 1549 – the first record from the Americas, in Santo Domingo.^[21]
• 1726–1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades derives it from the Latin esca, because fire eats it up.^[14]
• 1884 – the Academy gives the etymology “food”, as being food for the fire.^[22]

Meanings

Noun

1. tinder: very dry material, usually burnt rag, thistle or dried fungi, prepared so that any spark will catch in it.^[7][23][1]
2. Anything extremely dry and so ready to catch fire.^[7]
3. (figurative) Something that feeds a passion or unrest: Aquel discurso fue yesca para la protesta.^[7][24]
4. (colloquial) Anything that makes one thirsty, especially for wine.^[7][23]
5. (in the plural) The tinder, flint and steel used to light a fire.^[7][23]
6. (Guatemala, El Salvador, slang) Marijuana.^[16]
7. (Puerto Rico) The dry fibrous husk of the coconut.^[18][16]

Word family

• yesquero

Related words

• esca
• Portuguese isca

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b 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. yesca
3. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. esca
4. ^ Academia de la Llingua Asturiana (2000), Diccionariu de la Llingua Asturiana, Uviéu: ALLA; online at https://mas.academiadelallingua.com/diccionariu, p. s.v. esca
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. yesca
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 6, 46
7. ^ a b c d e f 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. yesca
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. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2913
11. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 257
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. yesca
13. ^ 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. yesca
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 544
15. ^ Real Academia Española (1843), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 9th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Francisco María Fernández, p. 755
16. ^ 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. yesca
17. ^ Román, Manuel Antonio (1901–1918), Diccionario de chilenismos y de otras voces y locuciones viciosas, 5 vols., Santiago de Chile: Imprenta de San José, p. 732
18. ^ a b Academia Puertorriqueña de la Lengua Española; Universidad de Puerto Rico, Tesoro lexicográfico del español de Puerto Rico, https://tesoro.pr, p. s.v. yesca
19. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 298
20. ^ Alcalá Venceslada, Antonio (1951), Vocabulario andaluz, Madrid: Real Academia Española, p. 656
21. ^ 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. hiesca
22. ^ Real Academia Española (1884), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 12th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de D. Gregorio Hernando (the first Academy edition with etymologies), p. 1104
23. ^ a b c Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. yesca
24. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. yesca