Abarca 'a kind of footwear of rawhide, covering the sole, the toes and most of the foot, and fastened with cords or straps over the instep and ankle'.

According to a traditional etymology accepted by Diez and advocated by Baist, this word is derived from Basque abarka 'shoe'. But Schuchardt has declared the Basque word a borrowing from the Spanish, rejecting Astarloa's analysis of the Basque word into abar 'branch' and kia 'thing', and deriving the Spanish word from Latin barca 'boat'. The meaning 'wooden' assigned by Diez to Basque abar is not confirmed by the Basque-Spanish-French dictionary of R. M. de Azkue (Bilbao, 1905), and appears to rest merely on a doubtful semantic assumption. Furthermore, of course, the Spanish word does not designate a wooden but a leather shoe. Meyer-Lübke, wavering between the two rival etymologies in the second edition follows Baist in the third, objecting to Latin barca for the reason that it will not account for the initial syllable of Sp. abarca. This phonetic objection is valid; for while various Spanish words show an incorporated Arabic article, sometimes reduced to a-, as in azote < Ar. (al)saut, one looks in vain for Latin words similarly treated.