aveia

Forms

aveia f (plural aveias)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote auea and auena; the 15th century has aueea and avea.^[2][3][4] Vieira (1871–1874) still heads the word avêa and calls aveia old.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin avēna (“oats; straw; shepherd's pipe”), written Old Galician-Portuguese avẽa and Old Galician-Portuguese auea in the oldest texts.^[2][6][7][1] The Latin /n/ between vowels was lost, as in coroa, freio and lã, a change typical of Galician-Portuguese against Spanish avena.^[8] The learned doublet ⟨avena⟩ “shepherd's pipe” was taken from the Latin word in the 16th century;^[6][2] Machado quotes it from Camões.^[6][2]

The same Latin word is Galician avea, Italian avena, French avoine (Old French aveine) and Catalan avena.^[9][1][10]

De Vaan reconstructs Proto-Italic *aweksnā- and compares Lithuanian aviža, Latvian auzas and Proto-Slavic *ovьsъ “oats”; because the suffixes do not match, he thinks it is probably a word borrowed from a non-Indo-European language.^[11][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A charter of 1271 lists dous moyos millo et auea “two moios of millet and oats”, and one of 1276 has das auenas.^[4] Machado's earliest record is later, from a document of 1390 quoted by Viterbo: oito a'avéa, e quatro de milho “eight of oats and four of millet”, among dues paid in grain.^[6]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval charters the word names the grain paid in rents and dues.^[4][6] The dictionaries describe it as fodder for cattle and fowl that in some places was also made into bread (Caldas Aulete, Silva Bastos), and today as a cereal grown for people and animals, its grain and its flour.^[12][13][14] In southern Brazil oat porridge thickened with cornflour was a food for children and the sick.^[15] Portuguese dialects also have the shortened form veia.^[16]

Timeline

• 1271 – auea in a charter.^[4][2]
• 1276 – auenas in a charter.^[4]
• 1390 – avéa in a document quoted by Viterbo.^[6]
• 15th century – the spellings aueea and avea.^[2]
• 16th century – Camões uses the learned avena for the shepherd's pipe.^[6]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira heads the word avêa and marks aveia as old.^[5]
• 1899 – Figueiredo defines aveia as a food grass.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. oats, the cereal grass Avena sativa of the grass family, grown for food and fodder.^[2][18][1]
2. The grain of this plant: Comprou um saco de aveia para os cavalos.^[2][18]
3. Oat flour or rolled oats used as food.^[14][19]
4. (Brazil) A name of several other fodder grasses.^[19]

Word family

• aveal

Related words

• avena
• avenal
• Latin avēna
• Galician avea

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. aveia
3. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. aveia
4. ^ a b c d e 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. auea
5. ^ 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, 673
6. ^ a b c d e f g Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. aveia
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. aveia
8. ^ Ciberdúvidas da Língua Portuguesa, ISCTE – Instituto Universitário de Lisboa, https://ciberduvidas.iscte-iul.pt, p. s.v. aveia
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 818
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. avena
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. aveia
13. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. aveia
14. ^ 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. aveia
15. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. aveia
16. ^ 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. aveia
17. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 156
18. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. aveia
19. ^ 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. aveia