biscoito

Forms

biscoito m (plural biscoitos)^[1] The oldest spellings are bizcoyto and bizcouto, both of the 14th century.^[2][3] Biscouto remained in use: Bluteau heads the word so and refers biscoito to it, and Aurélio, Priberam and Michaelis still list it as a variant.^[4][5][6][7]

Etymology

It is probably borrowed from Old French bescuit, from Medieval Latin biscoctus (“twice-cooked”).^[2][3][8] Houaiss dates the Old French form to 1112, and Cunha and Machado give the French route as likely, not certain.^[2][3][8] Machado argues that the diphthong -oi- tells against the Italian intermediary that others had proposed.^[2][3][8] Houaiss holds that Italian biscotto, of the same Latin origin, had no direct influence on the Portuguese word, while the REW, as Nascentes reports, thought the ⟨i⟩ of the first syllable pointed to Italy.^[2][9] Wiktionary instead has the word inherited, as Old Galician-Portuguese biscoito, straight from the Medieval Latin word.^[1]

The Medieval Latin word, first found in Abbo, is Latin bis (“twice”) and coctus (“cooked”), the past participle of coquō (“to cook, bake”).^[1][10] De Vaan derives the verb from Proto-Indo-European *pekʷ- (“to cook”).^[11] The same compound gave Galician biscoito, Spanish bizcocho, Catalan bescuit and French biscuit.^[12][1][13]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado's first record is of 1317, from a list of pay for a galley's crew: the master (arraiz) is to have eight pounds a month por soldada e por gouernho e pan bízcoyto e agua “as wages and keep, and biscuit bread and water”.^[8] Here the word still qualifies pan “bread”, the twice-baked bread that kept on board ship.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

Vieira in the 1870s describes a very hard bread in the shape of a small cake, stocked for sea voyages, and a sweet made with eggs, flour and sugar, besides plain biscuits of water and salt for invalids.^[14] The original Caldas Aulete adds the familiar sense “slap” and the technical one “unglazed porcelain”.^[15] In the Azores the word names stony ground of solidified lava, recorded by Silva Bastos in 1912 and in later dialect surveys, also on Terceira.^[16][17] Brazil gave it the sense of the raised blocks of a tyre tread, and in north-eastern Brazil it has slang senses, among them each panel of a football in Piauí.^[2][18] In recent Brazilian Internet slang it means the attention or approval someone seeks online.^[1]

Timeline

• 1112 – Old French bescuit.^[2]
• 1317 – pan bizcoyto in a list of galley pay.^[8]
• 14th century – the spelling bizcouto.^[3]
• 15th century – the spelling biscoito.^[2]
• 1630 – bisqoto in a private letter.^[19]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau heads the word biscouto.^[4]
• 1813 – first records of abiscoitar and biscoiteiro.^[3]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira describes ship's biscuit and the sweet biscuit.^[14]
• 1912 – Silva Bastos records the Azorean sense “lava ground”.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. A biscuit or cookie: a small baked item of flour with water or milk, sugar or salt, often with eggs, butter or flavourings.^[2][5][1]
2. A ring of sweet dough fried in oil.^[2]
3. (historical) Ship's biscuit, bread baked hard to keep on sea voyages.^[20][21][6]
4. bisque, unglazed fired porcelain; an object made of it.^[2][15]
5. (informal) A slap (bofetada).^[2][5]
6. (Azores) Stony ground of volcanic lava.^[2][20][17]
7. (Brazil) Each raised block of a tyre tread.^[2][5]
8. (Brazil, Internet slang) Attention or approval sought online.^[1]

Word family

• abiscoitar
• biscoiteira
• biscoiteiro
• biscoitar

Related words

• Galician biscoito
• Spanish bizcocho

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 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. biscoito
3. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. biscoito
4. ^ 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. biscoito
5. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. biscoito
6. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. biscoito
7. ^ 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. biscoito
8. ^ 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. biscoito
9. ^ 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. 71
10. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. biscoctus
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. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. biscoctus
13. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 597
14. ^ 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, 774
15. ^ 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. biscoito
16. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. biscoito
17. ^ a b 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. biscoito
18. ^ Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. biscoito
19. ^ 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. biscoito
20. ^ 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. biscoito
21. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1422