aulaga

Spanish

Alternative forms

• aliaga
• ahulaga, arhulaga, hulaga (Canary Islands, Andalusia)

Etymology

Phono-semantic matching of Arabic جَوْلَق (jawlaq, “gorse, Ulex spp.”) based on the Romance substrate root *arg- related to thorns, compare Aragonese archelaga, archilaga, arxelaga, Catalan argelaga, argilaga, archilaga, French ajonc meaning Ulex, Medieval Latin argilāx, French argalou, Franco-Provençal argelas meaning the related Genista, and French argouse, Spanish arcosse, arcousse, Spanish árgoma, Occitan arnavés, arnives, Occitan arnavêou, argilac, Portuguese argaço, Asturian argaña, Leonese argaña, Spanish argaña, Old French argot → French ergot, Picard argaise, Spanish argaya, Galician argalla, Portuguese argalha, Galician argabazo, argubaxo, Portuguese argavaços, with various meanings related to thorny plants, and compare particularly Andalusian Arabic يُلَاقَة (yilā́qa), إِيلَاقُش (ʔilā́quš, “Calicotome”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /auˈlaɡa/ [au̯ˈla.ɣ̞a]
• Rhymes: -aɡa
• Syllabification: au‧la‧ga

Noun

aulaga f (plural aulagas)

1. gorse (Ulex europaeus)

References

• Corriente, Federico (2008) “aulaga”, in Dictionary of Arabic and Allied Loanwords. Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Galician and Kindred Dialects (Handbook of Oriental Studies; 97), Leiden: Brill, →ISBN, pages 188–189
• “argelaga” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.
• Schmidt, Uwe Friedrich (2008) Praeromanica der Italoromania auf der Grundlage des LEI (A und B) (Europäische Hochschulschriften; 49), Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, →ISBN, pages 83–86
• Simonet, Francisco Javier (1888) Glosario de voces ibéricas y latinas usadas entre los mozárabes (in Spanish), Madrid: Establecimiento tipográfico de Fortanet, pages 617–618

Further reading

• “aulaga”, in Diccionario de la lengua española [Dictionary of the Spanish Language] (in Spanish), online version 23.8, Royal Spanish Academy [Spanish: Real Academia Española], 2024 December 10