alvo

Forms

alvo (feminine alva, masculine plural alvos, feminine plural alvas, comparable, comparative mais alvo, superlative o mais alvo or alvíssimo)^[1] Medieval texts write alvo, aluo and aluuo.^[2] The noun alvo is masculine, plural alvos.^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin albus (“white”), written Old Galician-Portuguese aluo and Old Galician-Portuguese aluuo in the 14th century.^[2][3][4][1] Houaiss treats the noun “white colour, white of the eye” as a word of its own, from album (“whiteness; white of the eye”), the Latin adjective used as a noun, while Nascentes takes the Portuguese noun to be the adjective itself used as a noun.^[2][5][6] Latin /b/ after /l/ became /v/, as Vieira noted in 1871.^[7]

The same Latin word is Romanian alb, Spanish albo and Italian albo.^[8][9][1] In Spanish the word lives on only as a Latinism or a poetic word, since blanco took its place early.^[10]

The Latin adjective goes back to *alfo- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰ-o- (“white”).^[11][1] De Vaan compares Umbrian cognates and Ancient Greek ἀλφός (alphós, “dull-white leprosy”).^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the adjective to the 14th century from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[2] Lorenzo's chronology has Pero Menino's treatise of 1460 (estas... san alvas “these are white”), and a document of the same year speaks of mouros e mouras negros e aluos “black and white Moors, men and women”.^[12][4] The noun “target” is recorded in the 16th century, in a chronicle that has lhe tirauão todos juntos como a aluo “they all shot at him together as at a target”.^[4][2]

Semantic evolution

Nascentes explains the sense “target” by the board used in shooting practice, which was painted white.^[5] Bluteau (1712) describes the target as a sheet of white paper with a black circle in the middle, and Feijó (1734) says that the target was usually a paper and was called alvo for that reason.^[13][14] Bluteau already gives atirar ao alvo in a moral, figurative sense, and the modern senses “goal, aim” and “object (of attention, criticism)” grew from it.^[13][2]

As an adjective alvo became a literary and poetic word for “white, pure”, though some regional surveys in Portugal still record it as the ordinary word, used above all of linen.^[1][15] In Brazilian children's games alvo is the agreed spot in a game of tag.^[15] Tetum borrowed the word as alvu.^[1]

Timeline

• 14th century – first records of the adjective, as alvo, aluo, aluuo.^[2]
• 14th century – the noun “white colour; white of the eye”.^[2]
• 1460 – Pero Menino's alvas, and negros e aluos in a document.^[12][4]
• 16th century – first record of the noun “target”.^[4][2]
• 1542 – allvo in a private letter.^[16]
• 1611 – Barbosa renders alvo “target” by Latin scopus and gives dar no alvo.^[17]
• 1712 – Bluteau gives both the adjective “white” and the target of white paper.^[13]
• 1734 – Feijó explains why the target is called alvo.^[14]
• 1789 – Morais has pôr os olhos em alvo “to roll the eyes until only the whites show”.^[18]

Meanings

Adjective

1. (literary) white, very white; light, clear.^[2][19][1]
2. (figurative) pure, innocent.^[2][20]

Noun

1. The colour white, whiteness.^[2][21]
2. The white of the eye, the sclera.^[2][20]
3. A target, the mark one aims at when shooting or throwing.^[2][22][1]
4. (figurative) An aim or goal.^[2][1]
5. (figurative) The object of attention, criticism or ridicule, chiefly in ser alvo de.^[2][22][1]
6. (military) An objective chosen for destruction.^[2]

Word family

• alvura
• alvejar
• público-alvo

Related words

• albescente
• albicante
• albino
• albor
• álbum
• alva
• alvacento
• alvor
• alvorada
• Latin albus
• Spanish albo

Usage notes

Set phrases: dar no alvo “to hit the mark”, errar o alvo “to miss one's aim”, and pão alvo “bread of fine wheat flour”, as opposed to coarser breads.^[23][22][7] Alvo is also short for língua-alvo “target language” in linguistics.^[2]

Houaiss also records a rare medical noun alvo “belly, abdomen” (1926), a learned borrowing of alvus (“belly”).^[2][4]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. alvo
3. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. alvo
4. ^ a b c d e f Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. alvo
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. alvo
6. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 69
7. ^ 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, 347
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 24
10. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 118
11. ^ 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
12. ^ 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. alvo
13. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. alvo
14. ^ 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. alvo
15. ^ a b 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. alvo
16. ^ 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. alvo
17. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. alvo
18. ^ 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, 69
19. ^ 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. alvo
20. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. alvo
21. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. alvo
22. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 532
23. ^ 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. alvo