zalea

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic. 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, Philippines) /saˈlea/ [saˈle.a]
• Rhymes: -ea
• Syllabification: za‧le‧a

Noun

zalea f (plural zaleas)

1. sheepskin

Further reading

• “zalea”, 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
• Joan Coromines, José A[ntonio] Pascual (1991) “zalea”, in Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico [Critic Castilian and Hispanic Etymological Dictionary] (in Spanish), volume VI (Y–Z), Madrid: Gredos, →ISBN, page 811