câmbio

Forms

câmbio m (plural câmbios)^[1] Houaiss lists the medieval spellings cambio (1257), cambo (1279), cãbho, cambhyo and camio (13th century), caymbho (1344) and caembo (1439).^[2] Cunha has canbho in the 13th century.^[3]

Etymology

It is a deverbal noun from Portuguese cambiar, as Houaiss, Cunha and Aurélio explain it; in the old language it alternated with Old Galician-Portuguese cambo.^[2][3][4] Wiktionary allows either that or a direct inheritance of Late Latin cambium (“exchange”).^[1] Houaiss adds that the sense “exchange of money” came under the influence of Italian cambio, from which the DLP and Priberam derive the word directly.^[2][5][6] Niermeyer records the medieval Latin noun in the senses “exchange” and “money exchange”.^[7]

The verb continues Latin cambiō (“to exchange”), a late and rare Latin word that the OLD marks as Gallic.^[8] Cunha traces it to a Celtic root meaning “bent, crooked” and hence “alternated, exchanged”, and Wiktionary to Proto-Celtic *kamb- (“crooked, bent”).^[3][1] The same Latin verb gave Galician cambiar, Spanish cambiar and Italian cambiare, and Spanish has cambio from 1068.^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is recorded from 1257.^[2] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria it means “compensation”: Mary is to give the monks a canbio in return for a place called Alvaça.^[10] The Cantigas glossaries give its senses as “exchange, bargain”.^[11]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval language the word meant an exchange of one thing for another.^[2][10] The financial sense, the exchange of one currency for another, grew under Italian influence.^[2] Feijó in 1734 calls the câmbio a kind of contract.^[12] Morais's dictionary of 1813 has the figurative “in exchange for”, the banker's exchange of the money of one country for that of another with a profit, the banker's trade itself, and the rate of exchange between two places.^[13] Figueiredo (1899) adds a pass in bullfighting in which the torero dodges the bull with a turn of his body.^[14]

In the 20th century Brazilian Portuguese gave the word a mechanical sense: the gearbox of a car and its gear lever.^[2][15] In radio talk câmbio means “over”, and câmbio, desligo “over and out”.^[1]

Timeline

• 1257 – first record of cambio.^[2]
• 1279 – the variant cambo.^[2]
• 13th century – canbio “compensation” in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[10]
• 1542 – cãbio in a private letter.^[16]
• 1734 – Feijó describes the câmbio as a contract.^[12]
• 1813 – Morais lists the money exchange and the rate of exchange.^[13]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the bullfighting pass.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. An exchange of one thing for another; a swap, permuta.^[2][4][1]
2. A change or transformation (transformação).^[2][4]
3. (economics) The buying, selling or exchange of one country's currency (moeda) for another's.^[2][4]
4. (economics) The rate at which one currency is exchanged for another; taxa de câmbio.^[2][15]
5. (economics) The premium or agio earned on such an exchange.^[6][1]
6. (Brazil, automotive) A vehicle's gearbox, the mechanism that changes the ratio between the engine and the wheels; caixa de câmbio.^[2][15]
7. (Brazil, automotive) The gear lever.^[2][15]
8. (bullfighting) A pass in which the bullfighter dodges the bull with a turn of the body.^[6][14]
9. (radio) “Over”, said at the end of a message.^[1]

Word family

• cambiário
• cambismo
• cambista
• intercâmbio

Related words

• cambial
• cambiante
• cambiar
• escambo
• Spanish cambio

Usage notes

A separate botanical and anatomical câmbio means the cambium, the layer of dividing cells between wood and bark that makes stems and roots grow thicker.^[2][4] Houaiss treats it as a regressive formation from Latin cambiare or Portuguese cambiar, a divergent of the exchange word, while Aurélio and Michaelis take it from the scientific Latin cambium.^[2][4][17]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. câmbio
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cambiar
4. ^ a b c d e f Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. câmbio
5. ^ 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. câmbio
6. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. câmbio
7. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. cambium
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
9. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cambiar
10. ^ 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. cambio
11. ^ Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. câmbio
12. ^ 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. câmbio
13. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 330
14. ^ a b c Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. câmbio
15. ^ a b c d 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. câmbio
16. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. câmbio
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. câmbio