avelã

Forms

avelã f (plural avelãs)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin abellāna (“hazelnut”), an adjective used as a noun from the phrase “nut of Abella”, with nux (“nut”) understood; Abella was a town in Campania.^{[2][3][4][5][1]} The Latin word was also spelt avellāna, and abellīna was used as well.^[2][4] The DCECH adds that these nuts were plentiful there.^[6]

The Latin /n/ between vowels was lost, leaving a nasal vowel: the oldest form is Old Galician-Portuguese avelãa, and Machado explains that the medieval spelling Old Galician-Portuguese avelana stands for that nasal syllable, not for a spoken /n/.^[4][1] Houaiss records Old Galician-Portuguese auelaa in the 14th century and, in the 15th, the forms with the two vowels contracted into the modern one.^[2]

The same Latin word is Galician abelá, Spanish avellana, Catalan avellana, Occitan avelana, Italian avellana, Sardinian oddana and Romanian alună.^[7][1] French aveline was borrowed from Occitan.^[1] The DCECH observes that the Latin name prevailed for the fruit only in the Ibero-Romance languages, most of Occitania, Romanian and some dialects of northern Italy and Sardinia, and the REW that in northern Italy it names the cultivated nut as against the wild one.^[6][7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado has the word in a 13th-century document and in a cantiga of Airas Nunes: Bailemos nos ia todas tres, ay, irmanas, / so aqueste ramo destas avelanas “Let us dance now, all three of us, sisters, under this branch of these hazels”.^[4] The glossary of the cantigas d'amigo explains avelãa as aveleira “hazel tree”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The word first meant both the hazel tree and its nut, and Houaiss still gives “hazel tree” as its first sense, with the fruit as a later extension.^[2][8] The tree is otherwise called aveleira or avelaneira, names Cunha records from the 14th and 13th centuries.^[3] The first Caldas Aulete has cabeça de avelã “empty head”, of a thoughtless person.^[9] Michaelis records avelã-da-índia for the areca palm and its nut.^[10]

Timeline

• 13th century – avelana, the first record;^[3][4] avelaneyra “hazel tree” is recorded in the same century.^[3][4]
• 14th century – the spelling auelaa and the derivatives auellaal “hazel grove” and avelleyra.^[2][3]
• 15th century – the spellings auelaã, auelam, avellãa and avelã.^[2]
• 1748 – a private letter spells it avelãa.^[11]
• 1755 – Folqman renders it with Latin avellana and nux pontica.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. hazelnut, the fruit of the hazel tree (Corylus avellana).^[2][13][1]
2. (botany) The hazel tree itself, aveleira.^[2]

Word family

• aveleira
• avelaneira
• avelal

Related words

• Latin abellāna
• Galician abelá
• Spanish avellana

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. avelã
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. avelã
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. avelã
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. avelã
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 419
7. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 17
8. ^ a b 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. avelãa
9. ^ 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. avelã
10. ^ 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. avelã
11. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. avelã
12. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. avelã
13. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. avelã