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What is the etymology of the Spanish word "barrio" (neighborhood)?

Question #151539. Asked by chabenao1.
Last updated Sep 20 2024.
Originally posted Aug 06 2024 1:10 AM.

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pehinhota star
Answer has 2 votes
pehinhota star
11 year member
429 replies avatar

Answer has 2 votes.
Etymology
Borrowed from Spanish barrio, that from Arabic ??????? (barriyy, "wild"

A municipality or subdivision of a municipality in Spanish America.
A slum on the periphery of a major city, or a low to middle-class neighborhood in a lesser city, in Venezuela or the Dominican Republic.
(Philippines) A rural barangay
(informal, US) An area or neighborhood in a US city inhabited predominantly by Spanish-speakers or people of Hispanic origin.

link https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/barrio

Aug 06 2024, 4:20 AM
wellenbrecher star
Answer has 0 votes
wellenbrecher star
20 year member
650 replies

Answer has 0 votes.
This site offers "land, opem country" as a possible etymology.
In Spanish, the word barrio means simply "neighborhood." In the United States, however, the word barrio is most often used to describe a Spanish-speaking neighborhood within a city and is derived from the Arabic noun barr, meaning "land, open country." The Arabic adjective corresponding to this noun is barr?, meaning "of the land, of the open country" and by extension "on the outside" (of the city walls or district limits, for example). In medieval times, when Muslim rulers governed the south of Spain, both Arabic and Old Spanish were spoken in the streets of the thriving towns in the region. During this period, the Arabic word barr?, "of the land," was applied to villages and hamlets that lay in the territory surrounding a town or city. As medieval towns outgrew their original walls and overflowed into the surrounding countryside, these villages or barrios were enveloped by the expansion and became neighborhoods of the town itself.

link https://www.ahdictionary.com/word/search.html?q=barrio

Sep 20 2024, 12:01 PM
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