zalea
Spanish
Etymology
From Arabic, root س ل خ (s-l-ḵ), related to Arabic سِلْخ (silḵ, “hide, animal skin”). Coromines and Pascual say it is a borrowing of a "vulgar" (or spoken) Arabic term سَليخَة (salīḵa). First attested in the early 17th century in Don Quixote.
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): (Spain) /θaˈlea/ [θaˈle.a]
- IPA(key): (Latin America) /saˈlea/ [saˈle.a]
- Rhymes: -ea
- Syllabification: za‧le‧a
Noun
zalea f (plural zaleas)
- sheepskin
Further reading
- “zalea”, in Diccionario de la lengua española, Vigésima tercera edición, Real Academia Española, 2014
- Joan Coromines; José A. Pascual (1991), “zalea”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico (in Spanish), volume VI (Y–Z), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 811