Etymology
First attested in the 15th century. Of unclear origin: perhaps from an unknown pre-Roman language, or perhaps from Basque azari/azeri (“fox”) (a third suggestion, which holds that the term derives from onomatopoeia, is considered "far from convincing" and "unprovable").[1]
Pronunciation
- IPA(key): (Spain) /ˈθora/ [ˈθo.ra]
- IPA(key): (Latin America, Philippines) /ˈsora/ [ˈso.ra]
- Rhymes: -ora
- Syllabification: zo‧rra
References
2012, A History of the Spanish Lexicon: A Linguistic Perspective →ISBN, page 39: "The initial attestations of Sp. zorro/zorra 'fox' are from the mid fifteenth century and appear almost exclusively in the feminine, employed in cancionero poetry, with reference to idle, immoral women (cf. mod. zorra 'prostitute'). […] DCECH may well be right in stating that zorro/zorra secondarily became a euphemistic designation for the dreaded fox (cf. raposo so used). […] The late initial documentation of zorro leads to the question [of] whether this word goes back to early Roman Spain or whether it is a later borrowing from Basque, a derivation, as noted above, challenged by Trask (1997: 421). Far from convincing is the unprovable hypothesis in DCECH that zorro goes back to a verb zorrar (whose authenticity I have been unable to verify), allegedly on onomatopoeic origin."