botânico

Forms

botânico (feminine botânica, masculine plural botânicos, feminine plural botânicas)^[1]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Medieval Latin botanicus, from Ancient Greek βοτανικός (botanikós, “of herbs”).^[1][2] Cunha calls the Latin word Late Latin, and Houaiss, Machado and Aurélio take the Portuguese word directly from the Greek.^[2][3][4][5] The Greek adjective is formed from βοτάνη (botánē, “pasture; herb”) with the suffix -ικός (-ikós),^[6] and the noun from βόσκω (bóskō, “to feed, to pasture”).^[7][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates both the noun and the adjective to 1680, from a citation in Bluteau's dictionary.^[3] Machado quotes the noun from the 17th century, in Curvo Semedo's Tratado da Peste: insigne botânico dos nossos tempos “a distinguished botanist of our times”, and dates the adjective to Bluteau in 1712.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Feijó (1734) glosses the word as the same as hervolario “herbalist”, so the noun first named an expert in plants and their remedies, as the Greek adjective had been used for herbalists.^[9][10] Morais (1789) gives the adjective “relating to botany” and the noun “one who knows botany”, and the names of the science, botânica, and of the specialist, botanista, are both recorded from 1790.^[11][8][12] Vieira (1871) quotes jardim botânico and geographia botânica, the study of countries by their plants.^[13]

Timeline

• 1680 – Houaiss's first date for the noun and the adjective.^[3]
• 17th century – Curvo Semedo's Tratado da Peste speaks of an insigne botânico.^[4]
• 1712 – Bluteau's dictionary has the adjective.^[4]
• 1734 – Feijó glosses it as hervolario.^[9]
• 1789 – Morais has both the adjective and the noun.^[11]
• 1790 – first records of botânica and botanista.^[8][12]
• 1871 – Vieira quotes jardim botânico and geographia botânica.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. botanical: relating to botany or to plants: jardim botânico “botanical garden”.^[3][5][1]

Noun

1. A botanist, a specialist in botany; botanista.^{[3][5][14][1]}

Related words

• botânica
• botanista
• Ancient Greek βοτάνη (botánē)

References

1. ^ a b c d e f Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. botânica
3. ^ a b c d e Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. botânico
4. ^ a b c d Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. botânico
5. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. botânico
6. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. βοτανικός
7. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. βοτάνη
8. ^ a b c Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. botânica
9. ^ a b Feijó, João de Morais Madureira (1734), Orthographia, ou Arte de escrever, e pronunciar com acerto a lingua portugueza, Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. botânico
10. ^ Liddell, Henry George; Scott, Robert; Jones, Henry Stuart (1940), A Greek-English Lexicon, 9th ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. βοτανικός
11. ^ 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
12. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. botanista
13. ^ 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, 804
14. ^ 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. botânico