abril

Forms

abril m (plural abris)^[1] Houaiss records abrill in 1325 and habril in the 15th century, and abrill is still found in 16th-century letters.^[2][3] Until the spelling reforms (1943 in Brazil, 1990 in Portugal) the month was written with a capital, Abril.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin Aprīlis (“April”), written Old Galician-Portuguese abril in the oldest texts.^[2][4][5][1] Machado notes that the Latin word was in origin an adjective, qualifying the word for “month”, used as a noun.^[5] Houaiss mentions a Vulgar Latin *aprilius, recorded in the 8th century and shaped after the other month names, which some Romance forms require.^[2][6]

The same Latin word is Galician abril, Spanish abril, Catalan abril, French avril, Italian aprile and Romanian prier.^[6][1]

The origin of the Latin name is disputed.^[2][7][8] Lewis and Short, following ancient authors, derive it from aperiō (“to open”), as the month in which the earth opens.^[9] Vieira and Figueiredo still derived it so.^[10][11] Houaiss calls this a fanciful invention.^[2] Benveniste took it from Etruscan 𐌀𐌐𐌓𐌖 (apru), borrowed from a short form of Ἀφροδίτη (Aphrodítē), so that it would be “the month of Aphrodite”; the DHLF and Wiktionary follow this.^[7][1] De Vaan, noting that April was the second month of the Roman year, suggests instead a link with ab (“off, away from”), as “the following, next” month.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Latin charters write the Romance name early: kalendas abriles in 1107, II kalendas abrilis in 1111, and in 1182 Domingo ante abril meiado fuit roborata ista carta “this charter was confirmed on the Sunday before mid-April”.^[5][12] In Galician-Portuguese texts it appears in dating formulas: VI dias andados de abril “six days into April” in 1260, XV dias d'abril in 1279, and eno mes d'abril in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[12]

Semantic evolution

Apart from the month the word has a poetic sense “youth”, recorded by Silva Bastos and Figueiredo, and used in counting a young person's age (donzela de dezasseis abris “a girl of sixteen Aprils”).^[13][14][2] Pereira's dictionary of 1697 translates it both as Aprilis and as Mensis Veneris “month of Venus”.^[15] Many proverbs name the month, such as Abril, águas mil “April, a thousand showers”, collected by Delicado and Bluteau and listed by Vieira.^[10]

Machado notes that Abril was also a personal name in the time of Sancho II (1223–1245) and a surname in the 15th century.^[5] The word passed into Kabuverdianu (abril), Tetum and Konkani.^[1]

Timeline

• 1107 – kalendas abriles in a Latin charter.^[12]
• 1182 – domingo ante abril meiado in a Latin charter.^[5]
• 1260 – VI dias andados de abril in a Galician-Portuguese document.^[12]
• 1279 – XV dias d'abril.^[12]
• 1325 – the spelling abrill.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates it with Latin Aprilis.^[16]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses it Mensis Veneris.^[15]
• 1871 – Vieira lists the proverbs of April.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. April, the fourth month of the year, with thirty days.^[2][17][1]
2. (figurative, poetic) youth; freshness, vigour; in the plural, years of a young person's age: uma moça de quinze abris.^[2][17][14]

Word family

• abrilada

Related words

• Latin Aprīlis
• Galician abril

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 g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. abril
3. ^ 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. abril
4. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. abril
5. ^ a b c d e Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. abril
6. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 563
7. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. avril
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. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. Āprīlis
10. ^ a b c Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 1, 36
11. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. abril
12. ^ a b c d e 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. abril
13. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. abril
14. ^ a b 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. abril
15. ^ a b Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. abril
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. abril
17. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. abril