boi

Forms

boi m (plural bois, feminine vaca, feminine plural vacas)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote boi and boy.^[2] Morais (1789) gives the plurals boiz and boizes from the Ordenações Manuelinas.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin bōs (“ox, cow”), written Old Galician-Portuguese boi in the oldest texts.^[2][4][5][1] It continues the accusative of the Latin noun, probably through a popular form *boe, with the /v/ lost between vowels.^[5][1][6] Machado compares the Latin adjective boārius (“of cattle”), where the /v/ had already gone in Latin.^[5][6]

The same Latin word is Galician boi, Spanish buey, Catalan bou, French bœuf, Italian bue and Romanian bou.^[7][1] The Latin noun is irregular: Wiktionary and the DHLF explain it as a borrowing from an Osco-Umbrian dialect, the expected native form being the same as vōs (“you”).^[1][8] It goes back to *gʷōs and *gʷṓws, the source also of Ancient Greek βοῦς (boûs) and English cow.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter of 921 has castro de bo, a place name with the Romance form of the word.^[5][2] In Galician-Portuguese the word appears in the 13th century: the Cantigas de Santa Maria tell como Santa Maria levou o boi do aldeão de Segovia “how Holy Mary took the peasant of Segovia's ox” and of a man who prendeu seus bois con que lavrar fosse “yoked his oxen to go ploughing”, and Alfonso X compares people to os bois das ferradas plagued by flies.^[9][4] The sense was the draught ox.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Compounds on the animal appear early: the cantigas already have olho de boi, and Figueiredo (1899) lists olho de boi “round window, skylight” and pé de boi “a stolid man set in old ways”.^[10][11] Silva Bastos (1912) records the boi bento, a garlanded ox that walks before the Corpus Christi procession at Caminha, and boi cavalo, a riding ox in Portuguese Africa;^[12][13] Priberam places the boi bento in the Minho processions.^[12][13]

In Brazil the word gained many senses: the ox of the bumba-meu-boi folk play and the play itself, a cuckold, a fat or heavy person, a prostitute, and in the north-east menstruation.^[2][14][15] In Portugal it is also slang for marijuana and for a taxi passenger who gives no tip.^[2]

Timeline

• 921 – castro de bo in a Latin charter.^[5]
• 13th century – boi in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and in a cantiga d'escarnho of Alfonso X.^[9][2]
• 16th century – first record of boiada “herd of oxen”.^[4]
• 1789 – Morais gives the old plurals boiz and boizes.^[3]
• 1899 – Figueiredo lists olho de boi and pé de boi;^[11][4] Cunha's first dates for aboiar and boiadeiro.^[11][4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) Any animal of the genus Bos, cattle.^[2][14]
2. An ox, a castrated bull used for draught and for meat.^[2][14][16]
3. (Brazil) The ox, chief character of the bumba-meu-boi folk play; the play itself.^[2][14][15]
4. (figurative, derogatory) A cuckold.^[2][1]
5. (derogatory) A big, heavy or fat person.^[2][1]
6. (north-eastern Brazil, informal) menstruation.^[2][17][1]
7. (Portugal, informal) marijuana.^[2]

Word family

• boiada
• boiadeiro
• boieiro
• boizinho
• aboiar
• aboio
• boi-cavalo
• boi-marinho
• peixe-boi

Related words

• bife
• bovídeo
• bovino
• Latin bōs
• Spanish buey

Usage notes

Cunha and Houaiss record a separate boi (also boy), first in 1511: in Portuguese India a man of low trade, especially a palanquin or umbrella bearer, from Konkani bhôi;^[4][2][18] Dalgado notes that in his day it survived only after a personal name.^[4][2][18] Houaiss also has an Afro-Brazilian boi “pipe for marijuana”, which he explains after Cacciatore as short for boi de Oxalá, and Aurélio a boi “snake”, from Tupi mboi.^[2][14]

Fixed phrases include pôr o carro à frente dos bois “to put the cart before the horse” and a passo de boi “at a snail's pace”.^[16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. boi
3. ^ 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, 186
4. ^ 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. boi
5. ^ a b c d e Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. boi
6. ^ 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. s.v. boi
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. bos
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. bœuf
9. ^ a b c 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. boi
10. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. boi
11. ^ a b c Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. boi
12. ^ a b Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. boi
13. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. boi
14. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. boi
15. ^ a b Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. boi
16. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1455
17. ^ 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. boi
18. ^ a b Dalgado, Sebastião Rodolfo (1919–1921), Glossário luso-asiático, 2 vols., Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, p. 1, 132