áspero

Forms

áspero (feminine áspera, masculine plural ásperos, feminine plural ásperas)^[1] A variant ásparo is recorded from the 15th century and in a letter of 1576.^[2][3] Feijó (1734) lists asparo to correct it to áspero.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin asper (“rough, harsh”).^[5][6][2] The route is disputed.^[7][8] Nascentes and Wiktionary take it as a learned word.^[7][1] Corominas grants that the Spanish and Portuguese words, unlike the shorter forms of the other Romance languages, look learned, but he thinks them popular: the word is frequent in popular medieval texts, and words of the same shape such as Spanish árboles and víspera keep the stress on the third syllable from the end.^[8]

The same Latin word is Galician áspero, Spanish áspero, Catalan aspre, French âpre, Italian aspro and Romanian aspru.^[9][1]

The origin of the Latin word is unclear: de Vaan considers Proto-Indo-European *h₂esp-i- (“cutting”), comparing Cuneiform Luwian hašp- (“to cut down”) and Ancient Greek ἀσπίς (aspís, “shield”), or a compound meaning “rejecting”.^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date it to the 14th century.^[5][6] The Galician-Portuguese Crónica Geral says of a man that he era forte et aspero en lide “was strong and fierce in battle”, and of an ear of grain that it is aspera where it goes in and does harm; one manuscript writes asparo.^[11]

Semantic evolution

The medieval texts use it both of rough things and of harsh, severe people and deeds.^[11] In the 15th century the chronicle of the Constable has pallauras brãdas against others mais asperas, gentle against harsher words.^[2] Morais (1789) separates a rough uneven surface, a severe manner, what is harsh to taste or hearing, a rugged road and an untamed colt.^[12] The modern dictionaries keep these senses and add jarring colours in painting and dry, lifeless hair.^[5][13]

Timeline

• 14th century – first records; the derivative aspereza.^[5][6]
• 15th century – asperas in the chronicle of the Constable, and the variant asparo; the learned asperidade.^[2][6]
• 1576 – asparo in a private letter.^[3]
• 1734 – Feijó's Orthographia corrects asparo to áspero.^[4]
• 1789 – Morais lists the senses of rough, severe and rugged.^[12]

Meanings

Adjective

1. rough, with an uneven surface unpleasant to the touch: mãos ásperas.^[5][13][1]
2. Of ground: rugged, steep, hard to cross.^[5][13]
3. Harsh or sour to the taste.^[5][13]
4. Harsh to the ear, grating.^[5][13]
5. (painting) Jarring to the eye for lack of harmony in the colours.^[5][14]
6. Hard to bear; severe, rigorous: um inverno áspero.^[14][15]
7. Rude, curt in manner: palavras ásperas.^[13][16]
8. Of hair: dry, without natural oil.^[13]

Word family

• aspereza

Related words

• asperidade
• Latin asper
• Spanish áspero

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. áspero
3. ^ a b CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. áspero
4. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. áspero
5. ^ a b c d e f g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. áspero
6. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. áspero
7. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. áspero
8. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 381
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 708
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. asper
11. ^ a b Instituto da Lingua Galega, Dicionario de dicionarios do galego medieval (DDGM), ed. Ernesto González Seoane, Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/ddgm, p. s.v. aspero
12. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1789), Diccionario da lingua portugueza composto pelo padre D. Rafael Bluteau, reformado, e accrescentado, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 128
13. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. áspero
14. ^ a b Academia das Ciências de Lisboa, Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, revised online edition (2023–) of the Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa Contemporânea (2001), https://dicionario.acad-ciencias.pt, p. s.v. áspero
15. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. áspero
16. ^ Aulete, Francisco Júlio Caldas, Dicionário contemporâneo da língua portuguesa (1st ed. 1881), online as Aulete Digital, Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, https://aulete.com.br, p. s.v. áspero