zapa

zapa¹ sapper's spade; sapping

Etymology tree of zapa¹

inherited borrowed derived

Italian zappa

Spanish zapa

Pronunciation

• /ˈθapa/, [ˈθa.pa], /ˈsapa/^[1]

Forms

zapa f (plural zapas)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the sapper's spade is borrowed from Italian zappa (“hoe, mattock”), a military term.^[2][3][4] In Italian the word is the ordinary name of the farmer's hoe, recorded from the 13th century.^[5][6] Corominas and Nocentini, following Rohlfs, derive it from zappo (“billy goat”) of central Italian dialects, because the two prongs of the old hoe looked like the animal's horns.^[2][6] This name of the goat is widespread in the Balkans, as in Romanian țap, and probably comes from a call used to bring goats.^[2][6]

The DLE derives it from Latin sappa (“mattock”), a word of the Latin glosses.^[7][8][1] Corominas notes that those glosses come partly from Italian sources, and that their ⟨s⟩ is an imperfect spelling of the affricate of the Italian word.^[2] French sape and German Sappe are military loans from Italian too.^[2] Catalan sapa came from Italian through Spanish.^[9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Corominas's first record is Bernardino de Mendoza's Theórica y práctica de guerra (1594), which uses the word repeatedly; the CDH dates the text 1595 and has the siege works advancing con la çapa, hornillos o minas, “with the sap, mine chambers or mines”.^[2][3][11]

Semantic evolution

Corominas explains the narrowing to the military tool by the international prestige of Italian military terms; the word was the sappers' jargon and is missing from Las Casas, Percyvall and Covarrubias, though Oudin has it.^[2] The Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) described the tool, a spade shod with iron on its lower half with a steel edge, and recorded caminar a la zapa, of soldiers advancing under cover of their own siege works.^[12] The Academy added the trench itself in 1817, and Alemany (1917) has a figurative trabajo de zapa.^[13][14] Today labor de zapa or trabajo de zapa is covert work to undermine something.^[7][15]

Timeline

• 1594 – Bernardino de Mendoza's Theórica y práctica de guerra.^[2][3]
• 1604 – the verb zapar first appears, and zapador “sapper” in 1607.^[3]
• 1625 – Coloma uses it in his history of the wars in the Low Countries.^[2]
• 1698 – first record from the Americas, in Mexico City.^[16]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records caminar a la zapa.^[12]
• 1884 – the Academy derives it from Latin sappa and first lists zapapico.^[17][2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A kind of spade shod with iron on its lower half, with a steel edge, used by sappers (zapadores).^[7][1]
2. (military) The digging of an underground gallery or an open trench; a sap.^[7]
3. (figurative) In labor de zapa or trabajo de zapa: covert work to undermine something.^[7][15]

Word family

• zapar
• zapador
• zapapico

zapa² sharkskin, shagreen

Pronunciation

• /ˈθapa/, [ˈθa.pa], /ˈsapa/^[1]

Forms

zapa f (plural zapas)^[1]

Etymology

The word for the rough skin of the dogfish is probably from Spanish zapo (“toad”), the name of the toad in Andalusia, Murcia, Aragon and the Basque Country, because the fish's grainy skin was compared with the toad's rough one.^[18] Corominas follows Cuervo and Sainéan here, and compares pejesapo “anglerfish”.^[18] He rejects Barbier's idea that it is the same word as the sapper's spade, whose name was a technical, unpopular term.^[18]

The DLE derives it from Latin sepia (“cuttlefish”), which Corominas rejects because the Latin word named the cuttlefish, not the dogfish.^[7][18] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek σηπία (sēpía), and its Spanish outcome is jibia, which came through Mozarabic.^[1][19][20]

Earliest recorded meaning

The CDH's earliest clear record is Lope de Vega's La Arcadia (1598), with a case of knives in a vaina de zapa, “sheath of shagreen”.^[11] Corominas notes that it may already appear in a Castilian translation of Castanheda's travels to India (1554), and that Quevedo used it for the fish itself.^[18]

Semantic evolution

The Diccionario de Autoridades (1739) gave three senses: the same as lija, the dogfish or its skin; any leather prepared to look like it; and a kind of work in which silversmiths imitated the skin's grain on boxes and other pieces.^[12] In the Americas, Bogotá inventories of 1761 list watch cases and small boxes de zapa.^[16] The DLE keeps the same three senses.^[7]

Timeline

• 1598 – Lope de Vega's La Arcadia mentions a sheath de zapa.^[11]
• 1739 – the Diccionario de Autoridades records the fish skin, the leather and the silversmith's work.^[12]
• 1761 – first record from the Americas, in Bogotá.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. The rough skin of some sharks and rays; lija.^[7][21]
2. shagreen: leather worked so that its surface has a grain like sharkskin.^[7]
3. Work on metal that imitates the grain of sharkskin.^[7]