alvor

Forms

alvor m (plural alvores)^[1] Houaiss records alvor and aluor in the 13th century and the variant albor from 1664.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin albor (“whiteness”), from albus (“white”) with the noun suffix -or.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} Machado calls the Latin noun Late Latin, with the senses “whiteness” and “white of an egg”.^[4] Wiktionary calls the learned form with ⟨b⟩ a doublet, and Nascentes treats the word as a variant of it.^[1][6]

The same Latin noun is Spanish albor, Occitan albor, Old French aubour, Italian albore and Romanian alboare.^[7] The REW lists the Portuguese, Spanish, Occitan, Old French and Romanian words under the sense “dawn”, and the Italian under “whiteness”.^[7] De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *alfo- and Proto-Indo-European *h₂elbʰ-o- (“white”) for the adjective.^[8] Among its cognates is Ancient Greek ἀλφός (alphós, “whiteness, white leprosy”).^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria use it for dawn, as in quando o alvor / parecia “when the dawn appeared”, and call the Virgin alva dos alvores “dawn of dawns”.^[10] In a cantiga d'escarnho of Afonso X the bare alvor means “at daybreak”.^[10] João Airas de Santiago sings of the birds that sang of love quando saía l'alvor “when the dawn came out”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

Machado's 14th-century quotation from the Nobiliário of Count Pedro has the phrase rompente o alvor “at the break of dawn”, and Morais (1789) cites the same work for his only sense, “the dawn of the morning”.^[4][12] Aurélio quotes the sense “whiteness” from Casimiro de Abreu and Olavo Bilac, and Vieira calls it poetic.^[13][14] Houaiss adds the figurative “beginning”, as in the dawn of an age, and “bright light, gleam”.^[2] Figueiredo (1899) also lists a freshwater fish of this name, similar to the tainha (mullet).^[15]

Timeline

• 13th century – alvor “dawn” in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[10][2][3]
• 14th century – rompente o alvor in the Nobiliário of Count Pedro.^[4]
• 1664 – first record of the variant albor.^[2]
• 1789 – Morais lists alvor “the dawn of the morning”.^[12]
• 1871 – Vieira adds the poetic sense “whiteness”.^[14]
• 1899 – Figueiredo lists the fish name.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. The first light of the morning; dawn, daybreak: ao primeiro alvor partiram.^[2][1][16]
2. (figurative) A beginning: nos alvores da República.^[2][16]
3. (figurative) Snowy whiteness.^[2][1][17]
4. Bright light; gleam, brilliance.^[2][13]
5. (zoology) A freshwater fish like the mullet.^[17][5]

Word family

• alvorar
• alvorecer
• alvorada

Related words

• alvo
• alva
• albor
• alvura

Usage notes

Aurélio and Aulete mark the plural alvores, with closed /o/, apart from alvores, a form of the verb alvorar.^[18][19]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. alvor
3. ^ a b 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 Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. alvor
5. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 532
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. alvor
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 324
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. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. albus
10. ^ 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. alvor
11. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. alvor
12. ^ a b 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
13. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. alvor
14. ^ 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
15. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 69
16. ^ a b 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. alvor
17. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. alvor
18. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda (1975), Novo dicionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, p. 102
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. alvor