buxo

Forms

buxo m (plural buxos)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin buxus (“box tree”), written Old Galician-Portuguese buxo in the oldest texts.^[1][2][3][4] The botanical genus name, fixed in 1735, is the same Latin word.^[2]

The same Latin word is Galician buxo, Spanish boj, Catalan boix, Occitan bois, French buis and Italian bosso, and it is also the source of the English word box.^[1][5] Corominas finds the Spanish form surprising beside the Galician and Portuguese word, since a form such as bujo would be expected, and the REW therefore takes the Spanish word from Catalan.^[6]

Houaiss, Cunha and Machado derive the Latin word from Ancient Greek πύξος (púxos, “box tree”), as the OLD does.^[2][3][7][8] Wiktionary doubts this, since the tree grew in Italy and is not native to Greece, and considers both words possibly borrowed from a substrate language of Italy; the Greek word is attested in Mycenaean.^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first record is in the Crónica Geral de Espanha of 1344, which says of a place that ha hy muyto buxo e mui bõo e de hy o levam a muytas partes “there is much box there, and very good, which they take from there to many places”: the sense is the tree and its prized wood.^[4][2] Cunha's addenda add a 15th-century record.^[3] Machado's first date is only 1871.^[3][7]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) uses the word for both the tree and its wood, and lists buxal “a place full of box trees”.^[10] Bluteau (1712–1728) describes the dense evergreen shrub and its hard yellowish wood, from which flutes, combs and boxes were made, and derives the name from a Greek word for “dense”.^[11] Folqman and Morais record a shoemaker's buxo, a round piece of boxwood on which the seams of shoes were joined and smoothed, and Vieira still lists it in 1871.^[12][13][14] Today the box is grown above all for hedges and topiary, and in Portugal sprigs of it are blessed in churches on Palm Sunday.^[2][15]

Timeline

• 1344 – muyto buxo e mui bõo in the Crónica Geral de Espanha.^[4]
• 15th century – a further record in Cunha's addenda.^[3]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses buxo with Latin buxus.^[16]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists buxo for tree and wood and the derivative buxal.^[10]
• 1734 – Feijó prescribes the spelling buxo for the tree, against bucho.^[17]
• 1755 – Folqman records the shoemaker's buxo.^[12]
• 1871 – Vieira's entry, Machado's first date.^[7][14]

Meanings

Noun

1. box, a common name for the evergreen shrubs and small trees of the genus Buxus, grown for hedges, topiary and their wood.^[2][18][1]
2. The common box, Buxus sempervirens, of Europe and the Mediterranean; also called buxeiro and buxeira: Os canteiros eram rodeados de buxo bem aparado.^[2][19]
3. boxwood, the hard, heavy, yellowish wood of these plants.^[2][15]

Word family

• buxeiro

Related words

• Latin buxus
• Galician buxo
• Spanish boj

Usage notes

Buxo “box” and bucho “stomach” sound alike, and the dictionaries warn against confusing them.^[20][21] Feijó already insisted on the spelling with ⟨x⟩ for the tree.^[20][21][17] Galician says forte como um buxo “strong as a box tree” of a robust person.^[22]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. buxo
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. buxo
4. ^ 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. buxo
5. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1430
6. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 614
7. ^ a b c Machado, José Pedro (1987), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., 5 vols., Lisboa: Livros Horizonte, p. s.v. buxo
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. buxus
9. ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. πύξος
10. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. buxo
11. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. buxo
12. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. buxo
13. ^ 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, 203
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, 835
15. ^ 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. buxo
16. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. buxo
17. ^ 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. buxo
18. ^ 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. buxo
19. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1585
20. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. buxo
21. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. buxo
22. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. buxo