Spanish; Castilian: Gachupín is a Spanish-language term derived from a noble surname of northern Spain, the Cachopín of Laredo (present-day Cantabria). It was popularized during the Spanish Golden Age as a stereotype and literary stock character representing the hidalgo (petty nobility) class which was characterized as arrogant and overbearing. It may also be spelled Spanish; Castilian: cachopín, Spanish; Castilian: guachapín, Spanish; Castilian: chaupín or Spanish; Castilian: cachupino. The term remained popular in Mexico, where it would come to be used in the Cry of Dolores.
The Spanish; Castilian: [[Diccionario de la lengua española|Diccionario de Autoridades]] (1729) defines Spanish; Castilian: cachupín as "The Spaniard that goes and lives in the West Indies, called Spanish; Castilian: chapetón in Peru. The phrase was brought from those countries, and is frequently used in Andalucia, and between merchants en route to the West Indies."[1] Since the 1780 edition, the academic dictionary, recognizes the variant beginning with the letter "g" understood to have arisen in the New World: "In The Indies, where they say Spanish; Castilian: gachupín" [2] or "Spanish; Castilian: godo".[3] The 1925 edition signals that the etymology is from the Portuguese Portuguese: cachopo, or child, and restricts the geographic extent of its use to North America.[4] The current Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy derives it from the term Spanish; Castilian: cachopín.[5]
In 1992, Antonio Alatorre explained how the term was coined by Jorge de Montemayor in 1557 in his pastoral work Spanish; Castilian: [[La Diana]],[6] [7] because he was amused by the interaction of forms and meanings between this elitist Spanish surname and the word he knew from his native Portuguese Portuguese: cachopo, meaning "touchy", "crag", or "boy". In Don Quixote, Cervantes uses the word similarly. This may be a conscious reference to Spanish; Castilian: La Diana, as later in Don Quixote, a copy of Spanish; Castilian: La Diana is narrowly rescued from being burnt.[8]
In the Iberian Peninsula, the word would lose this unique meaning, though it would survive in La Mancha into the late twentieth century.[9]
In the 18th century, Friar Servando Teresa de Mier inferred that the etymology of Spanish; Castilian: gachupín arose from the Nahuatl Nahuatl languages: cactzopini composed of Nahuatl languages: cactli meaning "shoe", and Nahuatl languages: tzopini, meaning "sharp", referring to the Spanish who wore spurs.[10] This method of determining etymology, in use in de Mier's time and earlier, became considered antiquated by the later philology of the 19th-century German Neogrammarians. This school would argue against determining etymology primarily through lexical similarity, and not considering Sound change, which they thought to be the driver of lexical evolution.[11]
The word took root especially in Mexico and Central America, referring to the idea of the upstart Spaniard. In the 19th century it was used in pro-independence slogans such as Spanish; Castilian: Mueran los gachupines ("Death to the peninsulares") as part of one version of Miguel Hidalgo's Cry of Dolores.[12] Ramón María del Valle-Inclán would bring the word back into the continental vocabulary in his 1926 novel Spanish; Castilian: Tirano Banderas.[13]
The word may be used colloquially either ironically or to indicate disrespect, depending on the context.[14]