zorra

Galician

Noun

zorra f (plural zorras)

  1. sleigh
  2. sled

Portuguese

Pronunciation
  • (Portugal) IPA(key): /ˈzo.ʁɐ/
  • Hyphenation: zor‧ra

Etymology 1

Back-formation from zorrar.

Noun

zorra f (plural zorras)

  1. sledge, dray

Etymology 2

Unknown. Compare Spanish zorra.

Noun

zorra f (plural zorras)

  1. an old fox
  2. a plodder
  3. (colloquial, Brazil) a mess
  4. (colloquial, derogatory, regional) a prostitute

Spanish

Etymology

First attested in the 15th century. Of unclear origin: perhaps from an unknown pre-Roman language, or perhaps from Basque azari/azeri (“fox”) (a third suggestion, which holds that the term derives from onomatopoeia, is considered "far from convincing" and "unprovable").[1]

Pronunciation
  • (Castilian) IPA(key): /ˈθora/
  • (Latin America) IPA(key): /ˈsora/

Noun

zorra f (plural zorras)

  1. female equivalent of zorro; vixen; female fox
  2. (colloquial) slut, prostitute
  3. (colloquial) an attractive woman
  4. (colloquial) a cunning woman
  5. (colloquial) drunkenness

Synonyms

Adjective

zorra f sg

  1. Feminine singular of adjective zorro.

Further reading

References
  1. 2012, A History of the Spanish Lexicon: A Linguistic Perspective →ISBN, page 39: "The initial attestations of Sp. zorro/zorra 'fox' are from the mid fifteenth century and appear almost exclusively in the feminine, employed in cancionero poetry, with reference to idle, immoral women (cf. mod. zorra 'prostitute'). […] DCECH may well be right in stating that zorro/zorra secondarily became a euphemistic designation for the dreaded fox (cf. raposo so used). […] The late initial documentation of zorro leads to the question [of] whether this word goes back to early Roman Spain or whether it is a later borrowing from Basque, a derivation, as noted above, challenged by Trask (1997: 421). Far from convincing is the unprovable hypothesis in DCECH that zorro goes back to a verb zorrar (whose authenticity I have been unable to verify), allegedly on onomatopoeic origin."
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