deu

deu¹ ten

Pronunciation

• Northern: [ˈde̞w]^[1]
• Balearic, Central, Northwestern, Valencia: [ˈdɛw]^[1]

Forms

deu m or f^[1]

Etymology

The word for the number ten is inherited from Latin decem (“ten”).^{[2][3][4][5][1]}

The same Latin word is Old Occitan detz, French dix, Spanish diez, Italian dieci and Romanian zece.^[6][7]

The Latin numeral goes back to *dekem and *déḱm̥, cognate with δέκα (déka) and the English word ten.^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Coromines and the GDLC place the word in the oldest texts of the language.^[2][5] Llull writes of los deu manaments, the Ten Commandments, in the Llibre del gentil.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The ordinal was formed with the Romance suffix -è from Latin -ēnus: the old form was deè, feminine deena, from a prehistoric dezen with the regular loss of intervocalic /z/;^[9] desè, with the /z/ restored, finally won out, partly because a contracted masculine dè would have been too short and too far from deu.^[2] From the feminine come dena, each set of ten beads of a rosary, and desena.^[2] Desembre went through the same changes: Desclot writes dehembre, and a document of 1374 dembra.^[2]

Bruguera groups with the numeral the compounds dinou, disset and divuit, and degà from Latin decanus.^[4]

Timeline

• 1200s – Llull: los deu manaments.^[9]

Meanings

Numeral

1. ten, nine plus one.^[10][5][1]
2. Tenth, in numbering.^[10][5]

Noun

1. The number ten, 10; a thing marked with it.^[10][5][1]
2. les deu: ten o'clock.^[10]

Word family

• desè
• desena
• dena

deu² spring of water

Pronunciation

• Northern: [ˈde̞w]^[1]
• Balearic, Central, Northwestern, Valencia: [ˈdɛw]^[1]

Forms

deu f (plural deus)^[1] Old Catalan had dotz (Cerverí de Girona, c. 1270) and dou (Muntaner, c. 1330); deu is found from a document of 1441.^[11] In Roussillon place names have dú, and at Talteüll dúk.^[11]

Etymology

The word for the spring is inherited from Old Catalan dou, earlier dotz.^[11][3][1] The change from /ow/ to /ew/ is the one that made ⟨crou⟩ into creu and ⟨vou⟩ into veu.^[11][3]

The further origin is uncertain.^[11][12] The same feminine noun is Old Occitan dotz and, with the article fused to it, adotz; dialects of Franche-Comté and Burgundy have ⟨douis⟩, and Piedmontese has ⟨doss⟩.^[11] The REW sets up a Latin feminine *dux (“spring”) beside dux (“leader”), and Wiktionary calls the word pre-Roman, influenced by the Latin noun.^[13][1] Coromines rejects the derivation from the Latin noun: the form coincides with the Latin noun and comes close to ductus (“conduit”), but the meanings differ and the Latin words are masculine.^[11] He takes it as probably pre-Roman and Indo-European in its structure, perhaps a noun ⟨doukis⟩ or ⟨dūkis⟩, “bubbling of water”, from *dheu-, *dheuk- “to move turbulently, to whirl”, comparing dūkt (“to roar, rage”) and dūkti (“to rage”).^[11] Bruguera, the GDLC and Rodamots follow him, Bruguera because the sense and the gender rule out the Latin noun.^[12][5][14]

Earliest recorded meaning

Cerverí de Girona, about 1270, rhymes dotz in a poem on the water of baptism and the spring to drink and wash from.^[11] Muntaner, about 1330, describes manna rising from a tomb at Ephesus axí con una dou d'aigua ix, as a spring of water flows.^[11] Faraudo lists, with a question mark, a dou in Jaume I's Llibre de saviesa (1244).^[15]

Semantic evolution

The word means a place where water rises from the ground and the source of a stream.^[11][10] The poets of the Renaixença took it up again, Verdaguer among them.^[11] It is typical of Eastern Catalan and Roussillon, best rooted in the dioceses of Girona, Vic and Elna, and is not unknown in the rest of the Principality.^[11] The old form dou lives on in place names: la Dou de Fontalba near Queralbs, les Dous at Sant Esteve d'en Bas.^[11]

Timeline

• c. 1270 – dotz in Cerverí de Girona.^[11]
• c. 1330 – dou in Muntaner's chronicle.^[11][12]
• 1441 – deu in a document from Banyoles.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A spring, a place where water comes out of the ground; the source of a stream.^[10][5][1]
2. An underground current of water.^[3]