English
playa
Playa comes from Spanish playa ‘beach’, and goes back to Late Latin plagia.
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEplagia‘beach’
- Spanishc. 1500–presentplaya‘beach’
- Englishearliest quotation 2020playa
attested reconstructed ? uncertain or disputed deepest recorded ancestor
Earlier history uncertain.
Lineage
- Late Latinc. 200–600 CEplagia‘beach’
- Spanishc. 1500–presentplaya‘beach’
- Englishearliest quotation 2020playa
Earliest quotation: 2020, Diane Cook, The New Wilderness: “Beyond the valley below lay a playa, a vast…”
Linked words
through Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂- ‘flat’
field, floor, explain, palm, planet, plane, explanation, plain, clan, archipelago, fluke, parma, explanatory, flounder, placenta, palatine, planar, lech, polonium, esplanade, pelagic, placate, veld, implacable, plantar, floe, purdah, llano, flay, planta, 48 more
through Latin plaga ‘tract, region, quarter, zone’
through Late Latin plagia ‘beach’
Today it means
noun A level area which habitually fills with water that evaporates entirely.
Language periods are conventional ranges, not dates for this word.
Etymograph / Late Latin plagia / playa