abelha

Forms

abelha f (plural abelhas)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote abella and avella.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin apicula (“little bee”), a diminutive of apis (“bee”), written Old Galician-Portuguese abella and Old Galician-Portuguese avella in the 13th century.^[4][2][5][1] Plautus and Pliny already use the diminutive for the bee itself, without a sense of smallness.^[5][6] Nascentes explains that spoken Latin tended to prefer such suffixed forms to the simple words, as in joelho, ovelha and orelha.^[7]

The same Latin word is Galician abella, Spanish abeja, Catalan abella, Old Occitan abelha and Italian pecchia.^[8][1] French abeille was taken from Occitan.^[8][1] Meyer-Lübke notes that the diminutive covers the whole Romance west, while northern and south-eastern France kept the simple word.^[8]

De Vaan finds no accepted etymology for the Latin word, and calls conceivable Vennemann's proposal of a Semitic loanword, compared with the Egyptian word for the bee.^[9] Wiktionary cites the traditional comparison with Ancient Greek ἐμπίς (empís, “gnat”) and German Imme (“bee”), but notes that the word looks like one of a European substrate.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado finds Abelia as a personal name in a Latin record of 1220.^[5][4] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria a peasant is d'abellas cobiiçoso, por aver en mel e cera “greedy for bees, to have honey and wax”.^[3] The Miragres de Santiago list os peixes et as abellas “the fish and the bees” among creatures that breed without a male.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) records abelha mestra “queen bee” and abelhão “drone”, and Bluteau describes many kinds of bees, wild and tame.^[10][11] Morais (1789) adds the name of a southern constellation, and in 1813 a plant, the fly orchid.^[12][13] Derivatives followed: abelhudo “meddlesome” in the 15th century, abelheiro in the 16th and abelharuco “bee-eater” in the 17th.^[2] Michaelis records abelha for a sly, meddling woman, and in Pernambuco it is a lazy person who misses work.^[14][15] Brazilian names of stingless native bees are compounds such as abelha-de-fogo.^[14]

Timeline

• 1220 – Abelia as a personal name in a Latin record.^[5]
• 13th century – abella and avella.^[2]
• c. 1430 – abelha in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[16]
• 15th century – first record of abelhudo.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary lists Abelha.^[17]
• 1611 – Barbosa records abelha mestra.^[10]
• 17th century – first record of abelharuco.^[2]
• 1789 – Morais gives the constellation.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. A bee, any of the hairy flying insects of the superfamily Apoidea, social, solitary or parasitic.^[4][18][1]
2. The honeybee, Apis mellifera, kept for its honey and wax.^[4][14]
3. (figurative) A sly, meddling woman.^[14]
4. (Pernambuco) A lazy person who often misses work.^[15]
5. (astronomy) A southern constellation.^[14][12]

Word family

• abelhudo
• abelheiro
• abelheira
• abelharuco
• abelhão

Related words

• apicultura
• Latin apis

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. abelha
3. ^ a b c 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. abella
4. ^ a b c d Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. abelha
5. ^ a b c d Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. abelha
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 12
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 2
8. ^ a b c Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 523
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. abelha
11. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. abelha
12. ^ a b c 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, 5
13. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 7
14. ^ a b c d e Michaelis: Moderno Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, São Paulo: Melhoramentos (online as Michaelis Dicionário Brasileiro da Língua Portuguesa, https://michaelis.uol.com.br), p. s.v. abelha
15. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. abelha
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. abelha
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. abelha
18. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. abelha