anjo

Forms

anjo m (plural anjos)^[1] Houaiss records angeo and angio in the 13th century and anjo, ajmjo and angello in the 14th;^[2] Cunha adds ango and angẽo from the 13th century.^[3][4] Machado quotes anjio from a text that is perhaps of the 15th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin angelus (“messenger of God, angel”), written Old Galician-Portuguese angeo in the oldest texts, and the Latin word is from Ancient Greek ἄγγελος (ángelos, “messenger”).^[3][4][2][1] In Church Latin the Greek word took the sense “messenger of God”, translating a Hebrew word for “messenger”.^[4][2] Machado stresses that, unlike some other Church words such as cruz, the Latin word went through the regular sound changes: the /l/ between vowels was lost, giving angeo, then Old Galician-Portuguese angio and anjo, the last already alternating with the older forms in the 13th century.^[2] The same Latin word is Galician anxo, Spanish ángel, Catalan àngel, French ange, Italian angelo and Romanian înger.^[1][5] Corominas finds the Spanish loss of the final vowel irregular.^[6] The learned doublets are the name Ângelo and the prayer ângelus.^[1]

The Greek word may already appear in Mycenaean, and is the base of the verb ἀγγέλλω (angéllō, “to bring a message”).^[7] Its further origin is uncertain: Wiktionary thinks it probably a loanword, perhaps related to ἄγγαρος (ángaros, “Persian mounted courier”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado quotes the 13th-century Portuguese translation of the Foro Real of Alfonso X: e fez os angios boos per natura “and he made the angels good by nature”.^[2] The Canto de Amaro tells of birds que auyã penas de angeos “that had the feathers of angels”, and an inventory of 1366–1367 lists Angios beside a cross.^[2][8]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) has anjo bom and anjo mao for a good and an evil spirit.^[9] Bluteau (1712–1728) also uses the word for a fish, the angel shark, named for its broad fins.^[10] Morais (1789) records anjo da guarda “guardian angel”, anjo máo “the devil”, and the comparisons bello como hum Anjo and canta como hum Anjo.^[11]

Modern senses include a child dressed as an angel in a procession, a quiet child, a child who died young, and a very good or very beautiful person.^[3][12][13] In Brazil anjo da guarda is also the guiding spirit of an initiate in Umbanda, and in the folklore of Alagoas the anjo corredor is a figure who roams at night beating on the gates of the sugar mills.^[3][12]

The word passed into Kabuverdianu as ánju, into Nheengatu as anju and into Japanese as アンジョ (anjo).^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, in the Portuguese translation of the Foro Real.^[2][3][4]
• 14th century – angeo in the Canto de Amaro.^[2]
• 1366–1367 – Angios in an inventory.^[2]
• c. 1450 – the Livro das tres vertudes (witness after 1450) has anjo.^[14]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates it with Latin angelus.^[15]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists anjo bom and anjo mao.^[9]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau records the fish anjo.^[10]
• 1789 – Morais records anjo da guarda.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (theology) An angel: a purely spiritual being, servant of God and messenger between God and people.^[3][12][1]
2. A painting or sculpture of an angel, usually a winged youth.^[3][12][16]
3. A person, usually a child, dressed as an angel in a procession.^[3][12]
4. (figurative) A quiet, well-behaved child;^[1] (ironic) a naughty one; an anjinho.^[3][12]
5. (informal) A child who died very young.^[3][12]
6. (figurative) A very good, virtuous or innocent person: A vizinha é um anjo.^[3][13][1]
7. (figurative) A person of rare beauty.^[3][13]
8. (ichthyology) The angel shark, cação-anjo.^[3][10]

Word family

• anjinho
• anjo da guarda
• papa-anjo

Related words

• angelical
• angélico
• angelino
• arcanjo
• Latin angelus
• Galician anxo
• Spanish ángel

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 i j Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. anjo
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. anjo
4. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. anjo
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. angelus
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 269
7. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. ἄγγελος
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 33
9. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. anjo
10. ^ 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. anjo
11. ^ 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, 84
12. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. anjo
13. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. anjo
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. anjo
15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. anjo
16. ^ 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. anjo