El origen latino de <i>jabato, gabato y gazapo</i>

Benjamín García-Hernández

doi:10.3989/rfe.2006.v86.i2.13

El origen latino de jabato, gabato y gazapo

Authors

Benjamín García-Hernández Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3989/rfe.2006.v86.i2.13

Keywords:

Greek loan words, Vulgar Latin, Romance etymology, diminutive suffixes

Abstract

The unsatisfactory interpretation of apros gausapatos (Petron. 38,15) as «wild boars with their fur» or «wild boars fried in batter» has given us the etymology of jabato, which word is also its best translation; but the most elementary result of the Latin adjective in Spanish is gabato, so that jabato is simply a variant of gabato, because of its cross with jabalí. On the other hand, gausapa (‘material woven of soft fur’), has a variant gausapus, which is the etymon of Span. gazapo, Port. caçapo, Cat. catxap and Sard. gaçapu. From *gausapattus, with expressive gemination, a diminutive suffix *-attus has become detached, present in almost all Romance languages and meaning various young mammals (Span. cervato, Fr. levrat, It. orsatto, etc.).

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Published

2006-12-30

How to Cite

García-Hernández, B. (2006). El origen latino de jabato, gabato y gazapo. Revista De Filología Española, 86(2), 277–292. https://doi.org/10.3989/rfe.2006.v86.i2.13

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Issue

Vol. 86 No. 2 (2006)

Section

Articles

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