is a Spanish-language term derived from a noble surname of northern Spain, the Cachopín of Laredo (present-day Cantabria). It was popularized during the Spanish Golden Age as a stereotype and literary stock character representing the hidalgo (petty nobility) class which was characterized as arrogant and overbearing. It may also be spelled , , or . The term remained popular in Mexico, where it would come to be used in the Cry of Dolores.
Definitions, origin and use The (1729) defines as "The Spaniard that goes and lives in the West Indies, called in Peru. The phrase was brought from those countries, and is frequently used in Andalucia, and between merchants en route to the West Indies."Diccionario de Autoridades Tomo II (1729) Since the 1780 edition, the academic dictionary, recognizes the variant beginning with the letter "g" understood to have arisen in the New World: "In The Indies, where they say " Diccionario de la Real Academia de la Lengua Española (1780) Pg. 1861 or "". The 1925 edition signals that the etymology is from the Portuguese , or child, and restricts the geographic extent of its use to North America.DRAE 1925 Pg. 204 The current Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy derives it from the term .DRAE 1925 Pg. 204.
In 1992, Antonio Alatorre explained that Jorge de Montemayor coined the term in 1557 in his pastoral work .Jorge de Montemayor: La DianaAlatorre, Antonio, "Historia de la palabra gachupín", in E. Luna Traill (coord.), Scripta Philologica in honorem J. M. Lope Blanch, México, Instituto de Investigaciones Filológicas UNAM, 1992, vol. II., págs. 275-303 Montemayor was amused by the interaction of forms and meanings between this prestigious Spanish surname and the word he knew from his native Portuguese cachopo, which means "touchy," "crag," or "boy." In Don Quixote, Cervantes uses the word similarly. This may be a conscious reference to , as later in Don Quixote, a copy of is narrowly rescued from being burnt.Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quijote de la Mancha
In the Iberian Peninsula, the word would lose this unique meaning, though it would survive in La Mancha into the late twentieth century.
In the 18th century, Friar Servando Teresa de Mier inferred that the etymology of arose from the Nahuatl composed of meaning "shoe", and , meaning "sharp", referring to the Spanish who wore spurs.Cited by the Mexican Sociologist Norma Angélica Castillo Palma: Cholula, sociedad mestiza en Ciudad India, pg. 114 (Google books). This method of determining etymology, in use in de Mier's time and earlier, became considered antiquated by the later philology of the 19th-century German neogrammarians. This school would argue against determining etymology primarily through lexical similarity, and not considering Sound change, which they thought to be the driver of lexical evolution.Hale, Mark; Handbook of Historical Linguistics Pg. 343
The word took root especially in Mexico and Central America, referring to the idea of the upstart Spaniard. In the 19th century it was used in pro-independence slogans such as ("Death to the peninsulares") as part of one version of Miguel Hidalgo's Cry of Dolores. Ramón María del Valle-Inclán would bring the word back into the continental vocabulary in his 1926 novel .Tirano Banderas (1926)
The word may be used colloquially either ironically or to indicate disrespect, depending on the context.
Examples , 1559, Jorge de Montemayor,
and , 1591, J. de Cárdenas, Problemas y Secretos Maravillosos de las Indias.
, 1605 Cervantes, Don Quixote
Cry of Dolores
See also Peninsular Casta
References