pórtico

Forms

pórtico m (plural pórticos)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin porticus (“covered walk, colonnade”), a learned word.^[2][1][3][4] The Latin word is derived from porta (“gate”), so it belongs to the family of Spanish puerta.^[5][1][6] Its fourth-declension forms are probably due to the analogy of domus;^[5][1] Wiktionary also suggests the influence of portus and of Ancient Greek στοά (stoá), which it translated.^[5][1]

The Latin word also has an inherited and a borrowed doublet in Spanish.^[4][1] Old Aragonese had a popular form puértego, recorded in an inventory of 1405, and Berceo used its derivative portegado for an atrium.^[4] porche was taken from Catalan porxe or porxo, and the Academy recorded it as a provincial word by 1843.^[4][3][7] The Romance outcomes of the Latin word include Italian portico, French porche and Occitan porge.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Latin porticu already appears in a Navarrese charter of 1229 written in Latin, which is not a record of the Spanish word.^[10] The first Spanish record in the CDH is Enrique de Villena's glossed Aeneid (1427–1428, in a copy of 1442), where Dido sits on her throne en meitad del pórthico del templo, “in the middle of the portico of the temple”.^[10] The DCECH and the BDELC date the word only from 1600, in Sigüenza, and DICCA-XV from 1498.^[4][3][11]

Semantic evolution

The Academy's 1817 dictionary defined pórtico as a kind of covered space resting on columns before the entrance of temples or other sumptuous buildings, and later editions added a cloister or courtyard surrounded by columns.^[12][13] In 1899 this became the present second sense, a gallery with arcades or columns along a façade or courtyard.^[14] The DLE no longer limits the first sense to sumptuous buildings.^[2][15] Early Spanish American records, from 1793 on, also use the plural for the porticoes of Athens.^[16] In football, pórtico means the goal in Honduras, Bolivia and Chile.^[17]

Timeline

• 1229 – Latin in porticu in a charter written in Latin in Navarre.^[10]
• 1405 – the inherited Aragonese form puértego in an inventory.^[4]
• 1427–1428 – Enrique de Villena writes pórthico in his glossed Aeneid (copy of 1442).^[10]
• 1498 – the first record in DICCA-XV's corpus of the Crown of Aragon.^[11]
• 1600 – the first record according to Corominas, in Sigüenza.^[4][3]
• 1711 – the first record from the Americas, in Guatemala.^[16]
• 1843 – the doublet porche is in the Academy's dictionary as a provincial word.^[4]
• 1899 – the Academy's dictionary gives the etymology “Del lat. porticus”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (architecture) A portico: a covered space with columns in front of a temple or other building: Nos refugiamos de la lluvia bajo el pórtico de la iglesia.^[2][18][1]
2. A gallery with arcades or columns along a façade or courtyard wall.^[2][18]
3. (Honduras, Bolivia, Chile; sports) The goal in football and other games (portería).^[17]

Related words

• puerta
• porche
• soportal
• Latin porticus

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. pórtico
3. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. puerta
4. ^ a b c d e f g h Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, s.v. puerta
5. ^ a b c Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
6. ^ Battaner Arias, Paz (dir.) (2017), Diccionario general de la lengua española VOX, Barcelona: Larousse Editorial, p. s.v. pórtico
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. 5167
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6675
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert
10. ^ a b c d Real Academia Española (2013–), Corpus del Diccionario histórico de la lengua española (CDH), version 3.1, https://apps.rae.es/CNDHE, p. s.v. pórtico
11. ^ a b Lleal, Coloma (dir.), DICCA-XV: Diccionario del castellano del siglo XV en la Corona de Aragón, Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, Grup d'Estudis d'Història de la Llengua (GHCL), https://ghcl.ub.edu/diccaxv, p. s.v. pórtico
12. ^ Real Academia Española (1817), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 5th ed., Madrid: Imprenta Real, p. 692
13. ^ Salvá, Vicente (1846), Nuevo diccionario de la lengua castellana, París: Librería de Don Vicente Salvá, p. 867
14. ^ a b Real Academia Española (1899), Diccionario de la lengua castellana, 13th ed., Madrid: Imprenta de los Sres. Hernando y Compañía, p. 800
15. ^ Real Academia Española (2001), Diccionario de la lengua española, 22nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, p. s.v. pórtico
16. ^ a b Boyd-Bowman, Peter (2003), Léxico hispanoamericano 1493–1993, ed. Ray Harris-Northall and John J. Nitti, New York: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies, p. s.v. pórtico
17. ^ a b Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010), Diccionario de americanismos, Lima: Santillana; online at https://www.asale.org/damer, p. s.v. pórtico
18. ^ a b Moliner, María (2007), Diccionario de uso del español, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. pórtico