alcatraz

Forms

alcatraz m (plural alcatrazes)^[1]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Arabic الغطاس (al-ḡaṭṭās, “the diver”), the name of a diving bird, as Houaiss, Cunha, Machado, Nascentes and Wiktionary hold.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Corriente, Pereira and Vicente put an intermediate Andalusian Arabic *qaṭrás between the Arabic word and the Romance ones, the Arabic word having been altered in al-Andalus under the influence of a root meaning “to strut”; the DLE derives the Spanish word from that form alone, as “the one who walks proudly”.^[6][7] Wiktionary adds that the modern Arabic القطرس (al-qaṭras, “the albatross”) is not its source but perhaps a borrowing from Spanish.^[1]

Of the other proposals, Nascentes allows that alcatruz “water-wheel bucket” may have interfered, because the pelican carries water in its pouch, and Wiktionary also lists Latin onocrotalus (“pelican”), itself from Ancient Greek ὀνοκρόταλος (onokrótalos).^[5][1][8]

The same word is Spanish alcatraz, recorded in 1386, and Catalan alcatràs.^[4][9] Machado infers from the 16th-century algatross that the Peninsula also had a form with ⟨g⟩, and that the white colour of the bird turned it into albatroz; the BDELC traces the English word albatross to Spanish in the same way.^[4][9] Wiktionary calls that word a doublet borrowed back.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Gil Vicente's play Almocreves of about 1526 mocks a dean que canta como alcatraz “who sings like an alcatraz”, the sea bird.^[2][4][10]

Semantic evolution

On the voyages to the East the name was given to the large sea birds of the southern oceans: Dalgado notes that there it meant not the pelican but the bird also called mangas-de-veludo, the wandering albatross, and quotes D. João de Castro's Roteiro of 1541, which saw alcatrazes at evening.^[11] The foreign travellers took the word over: Linschoten writes Alcatrases in 1589, and an English traveller of 1673 has Albetrosses.^[11] Bluteau describes the alcatraz as a sea bird larger than the gull that keeps company with gulls and is seen in numbers on the India voyage;^[11][12] Folqman glosses it with the Latin word for the pelican.^[11][12] Morais and Vieira describe a bird of the Portuguese coasts, and Figueiredo several kinds of pelican.^[13][10][14]

Today the name covers different birds in different places: in Portugal the gannet, a large white bird with black wing tips, in Brazil the brown booby and the magnificent frigatebird, and among Portuguese fishermen the great black-backed gull, whose sharp sight gives the saying tens olho como o alcatraz “you have an eye like the alcatraz”.^{[15][2][16][17]}

Timeline

• c. 1526 – Gil Vicente's Almocreves has canta como alcatraz.^[2][4]
• 1541 – alcatrazes in D. João de Castro's Roteiro.^[11]
• 1589 – Linschoten writes Alcatrases in French.^[11]
• 1697 – Pereira's Thesouro glosses alcatraz as a setter of dislocated limbs.^[18]
• 1712 – Bluteau describes the bird, seen on the voyage to India.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais lists the sea bird and the bonesetter.^[13]
• 1899 – Figueiredo gives the bird and the bonesetter separate articles.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (Brazil) The brown booby (Sula leucogaster), atobá.^[2][19]
2. (Brazil) The magnificent frigatebird (Fregata magnificens), tesourão.^{[2][16][20][15]}
3. (Portugal) The gannet, a large white seabird of the family Sulidae with black wing tips.^[15][21][1]
4. Any of several pelicans.^{[14][22][20][1]}
5. The albatross.^[22][1]

Related words

• albatroz
• Spanish alcatraz

Usage notes

Houaiss, Aurélio, Priberam and Michaelis also record an informal noun alcatraz “bonesetter”;^{[2][16][22][20][14]} Houaiss calls its origin disputed and suggests alcatra with the suffix -az, which Aurélio gives as its etymology and Figueiredo with a query.^{[2][16][22][20][14]} Pereira's dictionary of 1697 already has this sense, and Morais glosses it with algebrista.^[18][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. alcatraz
3. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. alcatraz
4. ^ a b c d e Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. alcatraz
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. alcatraz
6. ^ 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. alcatràs
7. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. alcatraz
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. onocrotalus
9. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. alcatraz
10. ^ 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, 279
11. ^ a b c d e f g Dalgado, Sebastião Rodolfo (1919–1921), Glossário luso-asiático, 2 vols., Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, p. 1, 21
12. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. alcatraz
13. ^ 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, 52
14. ^ a b c d e Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. alcatraz
15. ^ a b c 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. alcatraz
16. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. alcatraz
17. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. alcatraz
18. ^ 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. alcatraz
19. ^ 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. alcatraz
20. ^ a b c d 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. alcatraz
21. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 418
22. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. alcatraz