Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A daughter of a Spanish or Portuguese king.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A Spanish or Portuguese princess of the royal blood. See infante.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A title borne by every one of the daughters of the kings of Spain and Portugal, except the eldest.

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Spanish and Portuguese, feminine of infante, infante; see infante.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Spanish infanta, Portuguese infanta, feminine of infante.

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Examples

Comments

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  • There is a district of London called "Elephant & Castle", centred on a pub of that name. It is said that this is in fact a corruption of "Infanta de Castile",

    July 25, 2008

  • In this case the folk etymology is itself probably a folk etymology. The Elephant and Castle district once housed a smithy belonging to the Cutlers' Company; cutlers used ivory for their knife handles; to indicate this the smithy used a sign of an elephant, which in heraldry is depicted with a castle on its back (an alteration of the howdah); a pub later appeared on the spot and used the elephant and castle sign too; and from this the district was named. There was never an Infanta of Castile in British history, and that story about one is presumably a fanciful invention like those about Port Over Starboard Home or Sir Loin—what the linguist Larry Horn has called etymythology.

    July 25, 2008

  • I had a little nut tree,

    Nothing would it bear

    But a silver nutmeg,

    And a golden pear;

    The King of Spain's daughter

    Came to visit me,

    And all for the sake

    Of my little nut tree.

    Her dress was made of crimson,

    Jet black was her hair,

    She asked me for my nut tree

    And my golden pear.

    I said, "So fair a princess

    Never did I see,

    I'll give you all the fruit

    From my little nut tree.

    Children's Nursery Rhyme

    (sounds a bit phallic to me)

    July 25, 2008

  • Hmm... is there an open italics someplace here? (just askin'.)

    July 25, 2008

  • "The Infanta" by the Decemberists off of their album Picaresque.

    March 31, 2010