armadura

Forms

armadura f (plural armaduras)^[1] In the 16th century the Latin form armatura was also used.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin armātūra (“armament, equipment; troops in arms”), written Old Galician-Portuguese armadura in the oldest texts.^[3][4][2][1] The Latin noun is formed from armō (“to arm”) with the suffix -ūra.^[5][1] The verb is derived from arma (“arms, weapons”), which de Vaan and Wiktionary trace to the root Proto-Indo-European *h₂er- (“to join”): arms were at first what is fitted together.^[6][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado's first record is an inventory of 1364 listing treze Armaduras de cojros pera caes “thirteen leather armours for dogs”.^[2] The Crónica Troiana uses the word for a warrior's armour of metal, pierced by a great blow: lle falssou as armaduras todas que tragia “it broke through all the armour he wore”.^[7] Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 14th century.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The Latin word meant arms and equipment in general, and also soldiers under arms.^[2][5] In Portuguese it named the defensive arms worn on the body, and Bluteau (1712–1728) also lists armadura leve and armadura grave, light and heavy armament, and quotes Camões on a stag whose armadura of the forehead ended in many points.^[8] Morais (1789) records this use for the natural weapons of animals, horns, teeth and claws.^[9]

The idea of a set of parts fitted together gave technical senses: the framework of a building and, by 1899, the plates of an electric condenser and the soft-iron pieces kept at the poles of a magnet.^[10][11] Today it also names the steel bars inside reinforced concrete and the rotor of a motor or generator, and armadura de clave is a key signature in music.^[3]

Timeline

• 1364 – treze Armaduras de cojros pera caes in an inventory.^[2]
• 1431–1446 – armadura in the Vida do honrado Infante Josafat.^[12]
• 16th century – the learned variant armatura.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it by Latin armatura.^[13]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau lists armadura leve and armadura grave.^[8]
• 1789 – Morais records the sense “natural weapons of animals”.^[9]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the framework of buildings and the electrical senses.^[10]

Meanings

Noun

1. armour, the set of metal defensive pieces (helmet, couraça, mail) that covered the body of a warrior of old: O museu expõe uma armadura do século XV.^[3][14][1]
2. (zoology) The structures an animal uses to defend itself or attack, such as horns, spines or a shell.^[3][15]
3. (figurative) A protection or defence: A ironia era a sua armadura.^[3][15]
4. (engineering) A framework of iron, wood or the like that holds up a construction; the steel bars inside reinforced concrete.^[3][16][17]
5. (electricity) Each of the plates of a capacitor.^[3][16]
6. (electricity) The moving part of a magnetic circuit, such as the rotor of a generator or motor; an armature.^[3][1]
7. (music) armadura de clave: the key signature, the sharps or flats placed after the clef.^[3][18]
8. (Portugal) A protective fence of thorny branches or wire around a young tree.^[15]

Related words

• arma
• armar
• armação
• Latin armātūra
• Spanish armadura

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. armadura
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. armadura
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. armadura
5. ^ a b Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. armātūra
6. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. arma
7. ^ 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. armadura
8. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. armadura
9. ^ 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, 113
10. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. armadura
11. ^ 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, 556
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. armadura
13. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. armadura
14. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. armadura
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. armadura
16. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 902
17. ^ 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. armadura
18. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. armadura