bosque

Forms

bosque m (plural bosques)^[1] Medieval texts have bosco and boosco.^[2][3] bosque is recorded from the 16th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Catalan bosc, or the Occitan word of the same form, bosc: Houaiss and Aurélio leave the choice open, Cunha and Michaelis name Catalan, and Wiktionary, the DLP and Priberam name Provençal.^{[4][5][2][6][1][7]} Machado thinks of a Provençal word that came by way of Catalan.^[3] Corominas also finds it a late word in Galician-Portuguese, with the older form Old Galician-Portuguese bosco still alternating with the modern one at the end of the Middle Ages.^[8]

The Catalan and Occitan word is Medieval Latin boscus (“wood, woodland”), recorded in documents of Catalonia, southern France, northern France and northern Italy from the 9th and 10th centuries.^[8][9] Houaiss and Machado derive it from Proto-West Germanic *bosk (“thicket”) and Wiktionary from Frankish *busk, *buskaz (“bush, thicket”), which gave Old High German busc, Middle Low German busch and Middle English busch.^{[4][3][1][10]} The DHLF argues that the age of the word in Germanic rules out a loan from Romance into Germanic.^[11] Corominas, though, calls the origin uncertain, perhaps pre-Roman, and the DLE gives it as unknown.^[11][12][13] Wiktionary notes that the Germanic word itself is of unclear origin.^[1]

The same Medieval Latin word is French bois, Italian bosco, and, also taken from Catalan or Occitan, Spanish bosque.^[8][1] Older scholars had other ideas: Baist proposed a Greek word for “pasture”, Kauffmann a pre-Roman word, and Bluteau (1712–1728) derived it from German through Italian.^[14][15] Vieira (1871–1874) and Figueiredo (1899) call the origin unknown.^[16][17]

Earliest recorded meaning

The form bosco appears in 1258 in the Inquirições, royal inquests written in Latin.^[3][4] Houaiss and Cunha record boosco in the 14th century, and Machado quotes a 15th-century text, E aquelles que escaparõ asconderõ-sse nos booscos “and those who escaped hid in the woods”.^[4][2][3] Bosque itself appears in the 16th century in António Ferreira's Cartas, in a list of the works of the ancients: Bosques, parques, teatros, capitólios.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The dictionaries of the 16th and 17th centuries translate it with Latin nemus, lucus and silva.^[18][19] Bluteau describes it as a collective noun for trees growing close together, and distinguishes the pleasure wood with walks and avenues and the sacred grove around a temple.^[15] Morais (1789) defines it as a place full of trees used for hunting and has the figurative bosque de vícios “a host of vices”.^[20]

The transferred sense “a cluster of things that look like trees” (masts, poles, weapons) is in the old Aulete and in Figueiredo.^[21][17] Machado observes that bosque is not a popular word in Portuguese today, and in rural Galicia too the word is little used.^[3]

Timeline

• 1258 – bosco in the Inquirições, a Latin text.^[3]
• 14th century – boosco.^[4][2]
• 16th century – bosque in António Ferreira's Cartas.^[3]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates Bosque as Latin nemus and lucus.^[18]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau derives it from German through Italian.^[15]
• 1789 – Morais records bosque de vícios.^[20]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira calls its root unknown.^[16]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) A plant formation dominated by trees and shrubs, smaller than a forest, often left where forest has thinned out, or found within savannas and the Brazilian cerrado.^[4]
2. A wood, grove: a stretch of land covered with trees, smaller than a floresta; mata: Passeámos pelo bosque atrás da aldeia.^[4][22][1]
3. A cluster of things that look like trees: um bosque de mastros.^[4][7]
4. (figurative) A great quantity of something.^[4]

Related words

• Medieval Latin boscus
• Catalan bosc
• Spanish bosque

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 Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. bosque
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. bosque
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. bosque
5. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. bosque
6. ^ 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. bosque
7. ^ 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. bosque
8. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 636
9. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. boscus
10. ^ Orel, Vladimir (2003), A Handbook of Germanic Etymology, Leiden / Boston: Brill
11. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. bois
12. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. bosque
13. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. bosque
14. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 76
15. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. bosque
16. ^ 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, 803
17. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 204
18. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. bosque
19. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. bosque
20. ^ 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, 192
21. ^ 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. bosque
22. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1496