cangrejo

Spanish

Etymology

    From Old Spanish cangro (crab) +‎ -ejo (diminutive suffix), with the first element derived from Latin cancer. Coromines and Pascual dismiss the possibility of a Vulgar Latin *cancriculus on the grounds that a likelier diminutive would have been *cancerculus, that there are no native cognates in other Romance languages, and that Old Spanish's sole word for crab was cangro.[1]

    Pronunciation

    • IPA(key): /kanˈɡɾexo/ [kãŋˈɡɾe.xo]
    • Audio:(file)
    • Rhymes: -exo
    • Syllabification: can‧gre‧jo

    Noun

    cangrejo m (plural cangrejos)

    1. crab

    Derived terms

    Descendants

    • Asturian: cangrexu
    • Galician: cangrexo, caranguexo
    • Portuguese: caranguejo

    See also

    References

    1. ^ Joan Coromines, José A[ntonio] Pascual (1984) “cangrejo”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico [Critical Castilian and Hispanic Etymological Dictionary] (in Spanish), volume I (A–Ca), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 806

    Further reading