2.1.7. In the monolingual lexicographical tradition, in the second edition of Autoridades (1770) only baza was incorporated with the meaning of “en el juego de naipes es el número de cartas que recoge el que gana la mano” (‘in the card game, it is the number of cards picked by the winner of a hand’). However, it is relevant that variants continue to be presented, as in Domínguez’s Suplemento (1869), where one of the meanings of baza refers to basa. We pay attention to this because Román’s criticism focuses precisely on one of the cases where the word enters phraseology, specifically in the phrase sentada esta/la baza, with the meaning of “establishing this principle”, a phrase that appears for the first time in the “Diccionario de la lengua castellana” edition of 1783. Román attributes a possible error to the academic dictionary and we think that, rather than an error, what we have is a phonetic associative interference.

2.1.8. In the first place, we have the word baza, which has a controversial etymology attributed to it until this day. It was thought that it could come from Arabic, as claimed by a long lexicographical tradition: Autoridades (1990 [1726]) indicates that it comes from the Arabic “to conquer, subdue, dominate”, which becomes “appropriate a thing” in the edition of 1899 and “something won in a dispute” in the edition of 1956. The etymological lexicographic tradition of the 19th century insists on the Arabic origins: Echegaray (1887) and Barcia (1880) suggest that it comes from the Arabic “[to] win, because the one who makes the trick wins”. In the etymological lexicographic tradition of the 20th century, the DCECH (1980) relativises this thesis, since the term does not appear in the most relevant Arabic-language lexicographic repertoires.

2.1.9. However, we highlight another line within the 19th century etymological lexicographic tradition, which includes an Indo-European hypothesis, especially Germanic. Such is the case of Calandrelli (1881), who cites Diez’s thesis, which suggests that the word comes from the Middle High German bazze: “gain, benefit, advantage”, derived from the adjective baz: “good, profitable, useful”. This derived from the old High German baz or paz: “useful, profitable, good, excellent”, with an Indo-European base bhad-. Calandrelli proposes that from there derive both baza and báciga (‘old card game’), corresponding to the Italian term bázzica and the Catalan basa. Later, Meyer Lübke (1935 [1911–1920]) objected to Diez’s thesis, especially because of the competing sibilants in the word, which were not consistent with the Romance character of the term.

2.1.10. Corominas and Pascual (at DCECH 1980) proposed that the word could have been taken from the Italian bazza ‘bargain, gain’, of uncertain origin, which was already in Italian since the end of the 15th century, without adding further information. In order to justify more adequately this proposal and, therefore, to be able to unravel the relationship between baza and basa in the locution that Román criticises, we have been left without source or repertoire for this research. Hence, as paper repertoires become insufficient, we need an online search to obtain what Romance linguistics can provide us at length.

2.1.11. Indeed, we have found in current word banks, as in Tesoro della lingua italiana delle Origeni (TLIO), a project directed by Pietro Beltrami, that the word was already recorded in Italian in the beginning of the 14th century (cf. TLIO: Anonimo Genovese, 1311). The TLIO proposes that the etymology comes from the Provençal bauzejar ‘frodare’ (‘to defraud’). Here again, some online Romance language lexicographic resources were helpful: the Dictionnaire de L’Occitan Médiéval (DOM) confirms that bauzejar is precisely ‘frauder’ and that it would come from a Germanic root *bauson,