alcazaba

Spanish

FWOTD – 23 August 2014

Etymology

Borrowed from Arabic قَصَبَة (qaṣaba), via Andalusian Arabic. Cognate with English casbah.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /alkaˈθaba/ [al.kaˈθa.β̞a] (Spain)
• IPA^(key): /alkaˈsaba/ [al.kaˈsa.β̞a] (Latin America, Philippines)
• Rhymes: -aba
• Syllabification: al‧ca‧za‧ba

Noun

alcazaba f (plural alcazabas)

1. a Moorish fortress within or beside a walled city
   • 2012, Isabel San Sebastián, Un Reino lejano, Random House Mondadori, page 210:

     no se transforma una alcazaba en castillo ni una mezquita en catedral para luego dejarla en manos del pueblo que crucificó a Cristo…

     one doesn’t turn a Moorish fortress into a castle, nor a mosque into a cathedral, only to leave it in the hands of the people that crucified Christ…

Related terms

• alcázar

Further reading

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