alaúde

Forms

alaúde m (plural alaúdes)^[1] Fifteenth-century texts write alaude and allaude.^[2] Machado quotes the shorter variant laúde from the 14th century.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Andalusian Arabic العود (alʕúd), from Arabic عود (ʿūd, “wood; lute”) with the Arabic article.^[2][3][4][1] Houaiss and Machado give the Arabic word three senses: firewood in general, pieces of aloes wood burnt as incense, and the lute.^[2][3] Corriente explains the musical sense as a synecdoche, the instrument named after its material.^[4]

Corominas notes that the Arabic guttural /ʕ/ at the start of the word could not be reproduced in Romance and was heard as a deep /a/, so that the article and the noun were heard as /alaúd/;^[5][3] Machado likewise says that the ʿayn became a semivowel.^[5][3] The same Arabic word is Spanish laúd, earlier Old Spanish alaúd, and Catalan llaüt, French luth and Italian luto.^[5][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

The oldest record Machado quotes is the variant laúde in a 14th-century text listing instruments: e por laúde, rabeca e citola e outros stormẽtos músicos “and for lute, rebec and citole and other musical instruments”.^[3] The full form alaude appears in the 15th century.^[3][2]

Semantic evolution

Also in the 15th century the word named a boat: Machado quotes it as the name of a vessel, and Figueiredo cites Azurara's chronicle of Count Pedro, in which the count sends a man em um Alaude “in an alaúde”.^[3][7] Vieira glossed this old sense as the launch of a ship and suggested that it was a metaphor; the same transfer from the instrument to a small boat happened in Catalan.^[8][5] In Portugal the boat sense lives on for a fishing boat used for tuna in the Algarve.^[9][10]

The dictionaries from Barbosa (1611) on define the word as a musical instrument, and Morais (1789) as a stringed instrument shaped like a viola.^[11][12][11] Modern dictionaries describe it as a plucked instrument with a rounded, half-pear-shaped body, widespread in Europe from the Middle Ages to the Baroque.^[2][9] Priberam also records a figurative sense, poetic inspiration.^[13]

Timeline

• 14th century – the variant laúde in a list of musical instruments.^[3]
• 15th century – alaude and allaude, the full form, recorded as the name of the lute.^[2][3]
• 15th century – the word used for a boat.^[3]
• 1611 – Barbosa's dictionary renders Alaúde by Latin testudo, chelys and barbitos.^[12]
• 1734 – Feijó notes that the stress falls on the u, which is not joined to the a.^[14]
• 1789 – Morais describes the instrument as shaped like a viola.^[11]
• 1871 – Vieira records the old sense “ship's launch”.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. (music) lute, a plucked stringed instrument of Arabic origin with a rounded body and a pegbox bent back from the neck: Tocava alaúde numa orquestra de música antiga.^[2][10][1]
2. (nautical, historical) A small boat serving a ship, a launch.^[9][10]
3. (Portugal) A boat used in the Algarve for tuna fishing.^[9][15]
4. (figurative) Poetic inspiration.^[13]

Related words

• Spanish laúd

Usage notes

Aurélio records laúde as a little-used variant.^[10]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. alaúde
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. alaúde
4. ^ a b Corriente, Federico; Pereira, Christophe; Vicente, Ángeles (2019), Dictionnaire des emprunts ibéro-romans: emprunts à l'arabe et aux langues du monde islamique (Encyclopédie linguistique d'Al-Andalus 3), Berlin: De Gruyter, p. s.v. laúd
5. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 603
6. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. laúd
7. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. alaúde
8. ^ a b 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, 267
9. ^ a b c d 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. alaúde
10. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. alaúde
11. ^ 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, 50
12. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. alaúde
13. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. alaúde
14. ^ 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. alaúde
15. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 395