porc

Forms

porc m (plural porcs)^[1] Old Catalan also wrote porch.^[2][3] The DCVB records pronunciations with open /ɔ/ and one with closed /o/.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Old Catalan porc, which is inherited from Latin porcus (“pig”).^[5][4][6][1]

The same Latin word is Occitan pòrc, French porc, Italian porco, Romanian porc, Spanish puerco and Portuguese porco.^[7][1]

The Latin word comes from Proto-Italic *porkos and Proto-Indo-European *pórḱos, which de Vaan glosses “digger, pig” and Wiktionary “young pig”.^[8][1] Its cognates include fearh (“piglet”) and paršas (“piglet”).^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word appears in Romance inside Latin documents of the 11th and 12th centuries: an 11th-century document from the upper Segre valley requires de anno in anno porc un, one pig a year worth a shilling, and a farm at Costoja owed the monastery of Arles una levada de porc in 1168.^[5] The word meant the animal, often as a due.^[5]

Semantic evolution

In literature Desclot has carn de porc fresc “fresh pork”, and Llull compares a pig wallowing in mud with a woman who paints her face.^[5][3] Faraudo records the figurative use for a dirty or vile person in the Tirant lo Blanc (1460).^[2] Onofre Pou's vocabulary of 1575 lists the cuts and fats of the pig.^[5]

Combined with adjectives the word names other animals: porc senglar “wild boar”, already in the Curial and Peter the Ceremonious's chronicle, porc salvatge and, in the western Pyrenees, porc fer;^[5] porc espí is the porcupine.^[5] Coromines accepts javalí for the wild boar only in southern Valencia, where it is a relic of the Moriscos, and calls it a Castilianism elsewhere.^[5]

Bruguera dates porcell to 1242, porquer to 1313 and porquet to Vicent Ferrer.^[9]

Timeline

• 11th century – porc un in a document from the upper Segre valley.^[5][6]
• 1168 – una levada de porc in a document from Costoja.^[5]
• 1242 – porcs e galines in a document from the Conca de Tremp.^[5][4]
• 1460 – carn de bou e de porch in the Tirant lo Blanc.^[2]
• 1575 – Onofre Pou lists carn de porc and its Latin names.^[5]
• 1932 – Fabra records porc espí “porcupine”.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. pig, swine, the domestic animal descended from the wild boar: Cada hivern matàvem el porc a casa dels avis.^[11][6][1]
2. pork, the meat of the pig.^[11][6]
3. (figurative; feminine porca) A person who is dirty, physically or morally.^[11][4]
4. (adjective) Dirty; mean, base: una jugada molt porca.^[11][6]
5. porc espí the porcupine.^[11][10]

Word family

• porcada
• porcater
• porcell
• porquejar
• porquer
• porqueria
• porquerol
• porquet
• emporcar

Related words

• porca
• porcí
• senglar
• Latin porcus
• Occitan pòrc
• Spanish puerco

Usage notes

Fabra and the DIEC2 record the proverb De porc i de senyor, se n'ha de venir de mena, literally “of pig and of lord, it must come from the breed”.^[10][11]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c Faraudo de Saint-Germain, Lluís, Vocabulari de la llengua catalana medieval, online edition, Barcelona: Institut d'Estudis Catalans, p. s.v. porc
3. ^ a b Nou glossari general lul·lià (NGGL), Centre de Documentació Ramon Llull, Universitat de Barcelona, https://nggl.ub.edu, p. s.v. porc
4. ^ a b c d Alcover, Antoni M.; Moll, Francesc de B. (1930–1962), Diccionari català-valencià-balear, 10 vols., Palma de Mallorca: Moll, p. s.v. porc
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Coromines, Joan (1980–2001), Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana, 10 vols., Barcelona: Curial / La Caixa (online ed., Institut d'Estudis Catalans 2024), p. 6, 702
6. ^ a b c d e Enciclopèdia Catalana, Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana (GDLC), Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana; online edition, https://www.diccionari.cat, p. s.v. porc
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6666
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Bruguera, Jordi (1996), Diccionari etimològic, Barcelona: Enciclopèdia Catalana, p. 736
10. ^ a b c Fabra, Pompeu (1932), Diccionari general de la llengua catalana, Barcelona: Llibreria Catalònia, p. s.v. porc
11. ^ a b c d e f Institut d'Estudis Catalans (2007), Diccionari de la llengua catalana, 2nd ed. (DIEC2), Barcelona: Edicions 62; online edition with later updates, https://dlc.iec.cat, p. s.v. porc