almiar

Meaning

large haystack kept in storage, often with a pole through its centre

Concepts

haystack

hayrick

rick

haycock

mow

stack

Synonyms

pajar

Translations

Heuhaufen

hooiberg

paller

pagliaio

Heuschober

Schober

meule

meule de foin

tas de foin

meulede foin

Strohhaufen

accattafieno

Pfostenspeicher

hooimijt

Hyphenated as

al‧miar

Pronounced as (IPA)

/alˈmjaɾ/

Etymology

Cognate with Portuguese: almeara

Borrowed from Arabic: مير

In summary

Coromines and Pascual consider it to reflect the ellipsis of an unattested Late Latin (pertica) mediālis (“pole that goes in the middle of a haystack to hold it together”), with the meaning subsequently transferred to the haystack itself. Compare Portuguese almeara, almeada, and almiare (“outdoor hay-shed”), found in Castilian-influenced dialects. They take the Spanish variant ameal, found in Cespedosa de Tormes, to reflect an archaic stage of the word, with the /a-/ taken from a preceding feminine definite article la; that may be why they posit a feminine Latin etymon, despite the gender of the Spanish word. Initial /a-/ turning to /al-/, whether under Arabic influence or otherwise, is not uncommon in Spanish; cf. Latin amygdala > Spanish almendra. Once ameal turned to *almeal, the final /-l/ could then dissimilate to /-r/, which would help explain the form almiar. On the other hand, Arabic الْمِيَر (al-miyar, “the provisions”, definite plural of مِيرَة (mīra)), if not simply the source of the Spanish word, can have at least influenced it.