assassino

Forms

assassino (feminine assassina, masculine plural assassinos, feminine plural assassinas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Italian assassino (“murderer”), from Arabic حَشَّاشِين (ḥaššāšīn, “hashish users”).^[2][3][4][5] Houaiss, Cunha, Machado and Nascentes all take the word through Italian, where it is old.^[2][3][4][5] Houaiss notes that some see the influence of French assassin as well, and Aurélio names both the French and the Italian word as the route.^[2][6] Wiktionary gives the Arabic plural or, as an alternative, أَسَاسِيُّون (ʔasāsiyyūn, “fundamentalists”).^[1]

The Arabic name was given to the members of an Ismaili sect of the time of the Crusades, who were said to take hashish before killing the Christian or Sunni leaders their chief named.^[2][4][5] Corriente traces the Ibero-Romance words to a Neo-Arabic form with the same meaning, applied in the Middle Ages to the Ismaili terrorists.^[7] In Italian the word is recorded as assessino before 1290 and in its present form at the end of the 13th century for a follower of the sect.^[8][2] Dante uses it for a murderer before 1321.^[8][2]

The same word is Spanish asesino and Catalan assassí, and the French word as well.^[7][9] French has it in the sense “hired killer” from 1560, borrowed from Italian.^[7][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 15th century, in the spellings assassino and asasino.^[2][3] An old text that Machado quotes still uses it as the name of the sect: men made bold and fearless by a draught, “who are called asasinos by the people”.^[4]

Semantic evolution

In the 16th century Frei Diogo do Rosário's Summa Caietana explains that assassinos were infidels who went about killing Christians on command, and that jurists and common speech call so those who kill someone for money or at another's request.^[4] Morais (1813) defines the noun as one who gives a violent death, and records the spelling Assacino in a law.^[10] Figueiredo (1899) has the noun “one who kills treacherously or with premeditation” and the adjective “that murders”.^[11]

The original Caldas Aulete adds the figurative sense “destroyer, one who causes ruin”.^[12] The modern dictionaries also use the adjective of things that kill or that inspire a deadly passion.^[2][13][14] Cunha dates assassinar and assassinato to the 17th century and assassínio to the 18th.^[3]

Timeline

• 15th century – first records, as assassino and asasino.^[2][3]
• 16th century – Frei Diogo do Rosário's Summa Caietana uses the word for a killer for hire.^[4]
• 17th century – first records of assassinar and assassinato.^[3]
• 1734 – Feijó lists the spelling Assassino.^[15]
• 18th century – first record of assassínio.^[3]
• 1813 – Morais defines it as one who gives a violent death.^[10]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the noun and the adjective.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. A murderer, killer; one who takes another person's life, especially with premeditation or by treachery: O assassino fugiu pela janela.^{[2][14][16][1]}
2. (figurative) One who destroys or ruins something valuable.^[2][13][17]

Adjective

1. murderous; that kills or causes death: uma doença assassina.^[2][18][1]
2. Relating to murder.^[17][14]
3. (figurative) That torments or inspires a consuming passion.^[2][13][14]

Word family

• assassinar
• assassinato
• assassínio

Related words

• Spanish asesino
• Italian assassino

Usage notes

Houaiss records assassino profissional for a killer paid to murder, and assassino em série (also serial or seqüencial) for one who commits a series of similar murders.^[2]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. assassino
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. assassino
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. assassino
5. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. assassino
6. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. assassino
7. ^ a b c 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. asesino
8. ^ a b Cortelazzo, Manlio; Zolli, Paolo (1999), Dizionario etimologico della lingua italiana, 2nd ed. by Manlio Cortelazzo and Michele A. Cortelazzo, Bologna: Zanichelli, p. s.v. assassino
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. assassin
10. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 206
11. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 141
12. ^ 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. assassino
13. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda (1975), Novo dicionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, p. 171
14. ^ a b c d 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. assassino
15. ^ 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. assassino
16. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. assassino
17. ^ a b 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. assassino
18. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1003