bexiga

Forms

bexiga f (plural bexigas)^[1] The 14th century wrote bexigua and vexiga, the 15th bexiga and bixigua.^[2][3] Barbosa (1611) still refers Bexiga to Vexiga.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin vessīca (“bladder”), a Vulgar Latin variant of classical vēsīca.^{[2][5][3][1][6]} Nascentes finds the double ⟨ss⟩ not well explained.^[7] He attributes the initial ⟨b-⟩ to the confusion of ⟨b⟩ and ⟨v⟩, following Nunes, and the ⟨x⟩ /ʃ/ to the incomplete assimilation of the ⟨ss⟩ to the following /i/.^[7] Wiktionary suggests that the /b/ came from a northern dialect or from Galician.^[1] The 14th-century Old Galician-Portuguese vexiga keeps the ⟨v⟩.^[3][2]

The same Latin word is Galician vexiga, Spanish vejiga, Catalan veixiga, French vessie, Italian vescica and Romanian bășică.^[1][3][8] The learned vesícula is from the diminutive of the Latin word.^[5]

De Vaan follows André in taking the classical form as the original, from an imitative root seen in vissiō (“to fart softly”): bladders were blown up and used as balloons, so the word would echo the sound of a bladder letting out air.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado quotes a 14th-century text on the stones that form in creatures: nõ as gerão salvo na bexiguo “they form them only in the bladder”, adding that the falcon has no other bexigua than a certain gut.^[3] In the same century the Inéditos de Alcobaça use vexigas for the boils of the plague of Egypt.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Besides the bladder, the medieval word already named boils and blisters.^[3] From the 17th century it is the usual popular name for smallpox, in the plural: Machado quotes Cardim on uma universal peste de bexigas on an island of the East in 1637.^[3][5] Morais (1789) gives the pustule as the first sense, and the bladder as the second.^[10] A semi-learned vesiga appears in a 17th-century medical book.^[3]

The dried and inflated bladder of an ox or pig was a toy and a carnival prop; from it come the Brazilian sense “party balloon” and that of a float.^[2][6][1] Painters' oil paint was sold in small bladders, later tubes, also called bexigas.^[2][11] In Portugal bexiga is informally a joke or a mockery, and Silva Bastos records fazer bexiga, to mock.^[2][12] In the Beira it means a muddy place, and in Bahia a disease of the cacao tree.^[2][13]

Timeline

• 14th century – bexigua “bladder” and vexigas “boils”.^[3][2]
• 15th century – the spellings bexiga and bixigua.^[2]
• 1569 – bexigas in a private letter.^[14]
• 1611 – Barbosa refers Bexiga to Vexiga.^[4]
• 1637 – a peste de bexigas “smallpox epidemic” in Cardim's account.^[3]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses Bexiga with Latin vesica.^[15]
• 1789 – Morais gives the pustule and the bladder.^[10]
• 1813 – first records of bexigoso and bexiguento.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The urinary bladder; any membranous sac that holds a secretion: bexiga do fel, the gall bladder;^[2][6][1] bexiga natatória, the swim bladder of fish.^[2][6][1]
2. An animal's bladder dried and blown up, used in games.^[2][6]
3. (Brazil) A toy or party balloon.^[2][16][1]
4. A buoy or float filled with air.^[2]
5. (informal, usually in the plural) smallpox; the marks it leaves on the face.^[2][17][1]
6. (veterinary) A pustular skin disease of animals.^[2]
7. (Portugal, informal) A joke, a piece of mockery.^[2][17]
8. (painting) A tube of oil paint.^[2][11]

Word family

• bexigoso
• bexiguento

Related words

• vesícula
• Latin vesica
• Galician vexiga
• Spanish vejiga

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. bexiga
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. bexiga
4. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. bexiga
5. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. bexiga
6. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. bexiga
7. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 69
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 5, 757
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ 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, 180
11. ^ a b 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. bexiga
12. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. bexiga
13. ^ Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. bexiga
14. ^ 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. bexiga
15. ^ Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. bexiga
16. ^ 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. bexiga
17. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1367