yugo

Forms

yugo m (plural yugos)^[1] Old Spanish wrote iugo, yugo, iuuo, yuuo and jugo; a Burgos document of 1219 has jogo.^[2][3] Regional forms are yuvo in León and Old Castile, uvio or luvio in Almería and Albacete, and juvo and chuvo in Aragon.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Spanish yugo, inherited from Latin iugum (“yoke”).^[3][5][6][1] The word survives in popular form in every Romance language, and Corominas finds it absurd to suppose, as Meyer-Lübke did, that a farm object like this was borrowed as a learned word in Spanish and in Portuguese jugo.^[3][1] Its form is irregular all the same: the expected Castilian outcome appears in jogo of 1219, and Corominas explains the Castilian word, like uncir, as a rustic form akin to Leonese that spread through Castile.^[3][1]

For the consonant, he starts from a late Vulgar Latin pronunciation without the /g/, which also explains Catalan jou, Old French jof and Sardinian yuu; the hiatus was then filled by a new /g/, which does not continue the Latin one, by /v/ in the regional yuvo and chuvo, or by a glide in uvio.^[3][5][1] The other Ibero-Romance forms are Asturian xugu, Galician xugo and Aragonese chubo.^[4][1]

The Latin noun comes from *jugom and Proto-Indo-European *yugóm, a noun of the root *yewg- (“to yoke, join”) that also gave iungō (“to join”).^[1] Its cognates include Sanskrit युग (yuga), Ancient Greek ζυγόν (zugón), Gothic 𐌾𐌿𐌺 (juk) and the English word yoke.^[1][7] Wiktionary calls yoga a doublet of the Spanish word.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first Spanish record is iuuo in a document from Osma of 1214, and yugo in another of 1227; he holds that the earlier records cited by Oelschläger are in Latin.^[3][5] A testament of the 13th century leaves a monastery un yugo de boys, “a yoke of oxen”, the pair of draught animals rather than the wooden bar.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

The figurative senses, already Latin, are found in the Alfonsine prose:^[10] the law or rule that binds one to obey, in Christ's saying that his yoke is easy (el so yugo era blando), and a heavy burden or bondage.^[9] From the 16th century the chronicles of the Americas speak of the peoples placed debaxo del yugo e servidumbre de S.M. “under the yoke and service of His Majesty” (Nicaragua, 1527).^[11]

Autoridades recorded the band that joins the couple at the nuptial mass, and through it marriage itself, quoting Cervantes's Persiles.^[12] The Academy's dictionary of 1817 added the Roman yoke under which defeated enemies were made to pass, the nautical sense of a timber of the stern, and the phrase sacudir el yugo “to throw off the yoke”.^[13] The bell yoke was added in 1899,^[14] and the current dictionary also has the deflection yoke of a cathode-ray tube.^[6]

In Mexico yugo names the horseshoe-shaped stone objects of pre-Hispanic cultures, mostly Totonac.^[15] In Cuba and Panama it is a cufflink,^[16][17] and in the Spanish of New Mexico slang yugo means a job.^[18]

Timeline

• 1142 – DEMel cites iuvo from a Burgos document.^[2] Corominas holds that the records before 1214 are in Latin.^[3]
• 1207 – the derivative yugada.^[5]
• 1214 – iuuo in a document from Osma, Corominas's first record.^[3]
• 1227 – the spelling yugo.^[3][5]
• 1256–1300 – the Alfonsine laws use it figuratively for the rule of Christ.^[9]
• c. 1300 – juvo in the Fueros de Aragón.^[3]
• c. 1495 – Nebrija: yugo para uñir, “yoke for yoking”.^[19]
• 1527 – first record in the Americas, in Nicaragua, in the figurative sense.^[11]
• 1726–1739 – Autoridades adds the nuptial band and marriage itself.^[12]
• 1817 – the Academy adds the Roman yoke, the stern timber and sacudir el yugo.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A yoke: the wooden bar to which a pair of mules or oxen are fastened by the neck or head, and which carries the pole of the cart or the beam of the plough.^[6][16][1]
2. The wooden frame on which a bell (campana) hangs and swings.^[6][16]
3. A law or rule that binds one to obey; harsh domination: el pueblo vivió años bajo el yugo de los invasores.^[6][16]
4. A heavy burden, bond or tie: el yugo del matrimonio.^[6][16]
5. (historical) The frame of spears under which the Romans made defeated enemies pass.^[6][16]
6. (historical) The white band laid over the couple at the nuptial mass, also called velo.^[6][16]
7. (electricity) The deflection yoke around the neck of a cathode-ray tube.^[6]
8. (nautical) Each of the curved horizontal timbers fitted to the sternpost that form the stern.^[6][16]
9. (Cuba, Panama) A cufflink.^[16][17]

Word family

• yugada
• yuguero
• enyugar

Related words

• sojuzgar
• subyugar
• conjugar
• cónyuge
• yugular
• Latin iugum
• Portuguese jugo

Usage notes

Sacudir or sacudirse el yugo means to free oneself from an oppressive rule.^[6][13]

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. yugo
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. 6, 781
4. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 3617
5. ^ a b c d e Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. yugo
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. yugo
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. yugo
9. ^ 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. yugo
10. ^ Segura Munguía, Santiago (2001), Nuevo diccionario etimológico latín-español y de las voces derivadas, Bilbao: Universidad de Deusto, p. 403
11. ^ 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, p. s.v. yugo
12. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1726–1739), Diccionario de la lengua castellana (Diccionario de Autoridades), 6 vols., Madrid: Francisco del Hierro, p. 6, 545
13. ^ a b c Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 904
14. ^ Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 1034
15. ^ Santamaría, Francisco J. (1942), Diccionario general de americanismos, 3 vols., México: Pedro Robredo, p. 302
16. ^ a b c d e f g h i Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. yugo
17. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. yugo
18. ^ Cobos, Rubén (1983), A Dictionary of New Mexico and Southern Colorado Spanish, Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, p. 198
19. ^ 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. yugo