botão

Forms

botão m (plural botões)^[1] Houaiss records the plural botõões in 1450.^[2]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Old French boton (“bud; button”), the French word now spelt bouton.^[2][3][4][1] Houaiss dates the Old French form to 1160 and the modern spelling to 1236.^[2] The French noun is derived from the old verb boter (“to push, thrust”) (now bouter).^[2][5] This verb is from Frankish *bautan (“to push, strike”), which Wiktionary takes back to Proto-Germanic *bautaną (“to beat”).^[6][1]

Machado notes that the French word already meant “shoot, bud” in the 12th century and very early also “button of a garment”.^[4] Wiktionary takes Spanish botón and Italian bottone as borrowings from French too.^[1] Houaiss relates the word to botar “to throw, put”, which the DHLF also takes as borrowed from French.^[2][6]

Earliest recorded meaning

Machado's first record is a 14th-century text describing iron tools: filharás ferros feitos per esta guiza que aqui esté figurado, que tem dũ cabo hũ botão “you will take irons made in the way drawn here, which have a knob at one end”.^[4] Houaiss dates the sense “garment button” to the 14th century as well.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Morais (1789) gives first the botanical senses, the eye or bud from which a shoot grows and the flower still closed, then the button of a garment, a pustule, the hot iron used for cauterising, and a gunsmith's tool for checking the bore of a barrel.^[7] Figueiredo (1899) adds the knob of a door or drawer and the guard on the point of a fencing foil.^[8]

Houaiss dates the electric push-button to 1895–1899; from it came the knobs of radios and, in computing, the buttons of a mouse and of a screen.^[2] In Brazil the word was once informal for a police soldier.^[2] Wiktionary lists Kabuverdianu boton and words of Bengali, Hindi, Gujarati, Nepali and other South Asian languages as borrowings from Portuguese.^[1]

Timeline

• 14th century – first record, botão “knob”, and the sense “garment button”.^[4][2][3]
• 1450 – the plural botõões.^[2]
• 15th century – first record of the derivative abotoado.^[3]
• 1789 – Morais lists the senses “bud”, “unopened flower” and “button”.^[7]
• 1871 – Vieira compares French bouton and Italian buttone.^[9]
• 1895–1899 – the electric push-button.^[2]
• 1896 – the plasterer's sense, a dab of mortar used to set a level.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. (botany) A bud; the shoot from which branches, leaves or flowers grow.^[2][10][1]
2. (botany) A flower not yet open: As roseiras já têm botões.^[2][10]
3. (figurative) Something young and promising, not yet fully grown.^[2]
4. A small globular object: the guard on the tip of a fencing foil; a stud earring; a knob of a door or drawer.^[2][10]
5. (architecture) An ornament shaped like a flower bud.^[2]
6. A button for fastening or decorating clothing, passed through a buttonhole: Perdi um botão da camisa.^[2][10][1]
7. A knob or push-button that starts, stops or adjusts a machine: o botão do elevador.^[2][1]
8. (computing) A button on a mouse; an area of a screen that runs an action when clicked.^[2][11]
9. (Brazil, informal, obsolete) A police soldier.^[2]

Word family

• abotoar
• desabotoar
• botoeira
• abotoadura

Related words

• botar
• French bouton
• Spanish botón

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 o p q r s t u Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. botão
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. botão
4. ^ a b c d Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. botão
5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. bouton
6. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. bouter
7. ^ 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
8. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 204
9. ^ 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
10. ^ a b c d 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. botão
11. ^ Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. botão