Pico- | Spanish-English Word Connections

The post about nano-, a scientific prefix that carries a weight of ‘one one-billionth,’ or ’10 to the –9th power,’ seems to call for a follow-up about pico-, the next-smallest scientific prefix, which carries a weight of ‘one one-trillionth,’ or ’10 to the –12th power.’ That in turn raises a little question: is there any connection between pico- the prefix and the Spanish noun pico whose many meanings include ‘beak, bill; sharp point; spade (in cards); spout; peak of a hill; a little bit’? The straightforward answer is yes: the SI, or International System of weights and measures, took Spanish pico in its ‘little bit’ sense and turned it into a metric prefix. That ‘little bit’ sense often appears in Spanish in a construction like cuarenta y pico, which English might render ‘a bit more than forty’ or ‘forty-something’ or, with a mathematical reference as a bonus, ‘forty-odd.’

The pico that is ‘a bird’s beak or bill’ evolved from Latin beccus, a word that is likely of Celtic origin and that referred especially to the beak of a rooster. The Celts of ancient Gaul became the French of today, and the Latin beccus that developed to Old French bec has passed into English as beak. The notion of ‘a little bit’ conveyed by Spanish pico seems to have arisen from the notion of a bird’s beak tapering to a point, which is a tiny thing. By analogy of shape, Spanish pico came to mean things like ‘a sharp point; a pick(ax); a spout.’ In colloquial Spanish, pico can be ‘a mouth’ in general, so that a request to cerrar el pico is tantamount to an order to ‘shut your trap’ or ‘shut up.’ With the opposite emotional charge, in some Spanish-speaking regions a pico is ‘a kiss.’

© 2011 Steven Schwartzman

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