French words from Portuguese
10 French words with Portuguese in their history, whether borrowed directly or passed on through other languages.
baroque
It is borrowed from Portuguese barroco (“irregular pearl”), earlier “barroca” (13th century), a granite rock. The origin of the Portuguese word is obscure, probably pre-Roman because of its suffix…
caramel
It is borrowed from Spanish caramelo (earlier also caramel, recorded from 1601), which is from Portuguese caramelo (“caramel, icicle”). The Portuguese word is probably from Late Latin calamellus…
fétiche
It is borrowed from Portuguese feitiço (“charm, amulet; artificial”) (from the 15th century), first through a translation from Dutch, from Latin factīcius (“artificial”), the source of factice…
igname
It is borrowed from Portuguese inhame, the first European language to use the word (about 1500), which is probably borrowed from a Bantu language of West Africa, where the plant is native. The…
jaque
1. The word for the padded jacket is inherited from Old French jaque, probably from French jacques (“peasant”), the nickname of the French peasant and especially of the peasants who rose in 1358…
mangue
It is borrowed from Portuguese manga, which the TLFi and Rey trace to Tamil மாங்காய் (māṅkāy), the name of the fruit. Wiktionary has the Portuguese word come through Malay mangga, and Bloch and…
nègre
It is borrowed from Spanish negro (“Black person”), a specialized use of the Spanish adjective meaning “black” (about 1140), from Latin niger (“black”). Bloch and Wartburg, the Grand Robert and the…
roupie
1. The word for the drop at the end of the nose is of unknown origin: the TLFi, following the FEW, Bloch and Wartburg, Rey, Picoche and the Petit Robert all leave it unexplained. G. Alessio proposed…
teck
It is borrowed from Portuguese teca (“teak, teak wood”), which is borrowed from Tamil or Malayalam, a word of the Malabar coast. The wood was already imported into Asia Minor around the beginning of…
zèbre
It is borrowed from Portuguese zebra, which in the 16th century already named the African animal and earlier a wild ass of the Iberian Peninsula (from 1145, in a document from Coimbra). Bloch and…