cão

Forms

cão m (plural cães, feminine cadela, feminine plural cadelas)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote can, cã and cam, plural cães.^[2][3] Houaiss also records the plurals caes and cayees in the 14th century and caãees in the 15th.^[3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin canis (“dog”), from the accusative form, written Old Galician-Portuguese can and Old Galician-Portuguese cão in the oldest texts.^[3][1][2][4]

The same Latin word is Galician can, Spanish can, Catalan ca, French chien, Italian cane and Romanian câine.^[5][6] Catalan keeps it only in Majorca and in a few set phrases.^[5] In Spanish, perro, recorded from about 1200, pushed the old word aside from the 14th century and left it archaic or poetic, while the Portuguese and Galician word stayed the ordinary one.^[7]

Wiktionary derives the Latin word, through an earlier form canēs, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱwṓ (“dog”), the source of κύων (kúōn) and श्वन् (śván), and notes that the Latin form is much altered from the expected outcome.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin text of 1152 already has per cam medium, with the Romance form of the word.^[2][3] In Portuguese the word appears in the 13th century: the Cantigas de Santa Maria say of a man held mẽos que can “less than a dog” and compare a fighter to can bravo que guarda seu curral “a fierce dog guarding its yard”, and a cantiga of Afonso X has na cadela, polo can “in the bitch, for the dog”.^[2] The insult is just as old: a cantiga calls Muhammad Mafomete cão “Muhammad the dog”.^[8]

Semantic evolution

The Crónica Troiana speaks of men who non falan cõmo homes mays ladran cõmo cães “do not speak like men but bark like dogs”.^[2] Barbosa (1611) lists the farm dog, the herd dog and the hunting dog, and Morais (1789) the phrases entre o cão e o lobo “at dusk” and despertar o cão que dorme “to wake a sleeping dog”.^[9][10]

The name was also given to parts of weapons and tools: the hammer of a gun, a peg in a mill, an iron for the logs on a hearth, and an old piece of artillery.^[3][4] Figueiredo (1899) and Silva Bastos (1912) record a popular sense “unpaid debt”, still current in Portugal.^[4][11][3] In Brazil o cão is the Devil, and in the north-east a sweetened drink made with cachaça.^[3][12] In Portugal cão is the adult dog beside cachorro “puppy”.^[3]

Timeline

• 1152 – per cam medium in a Latin text.^[2]
• 13th century – can in the Cantigas de Santa Maria and in the cantigas of Afonso X.^[2][3]
• 1513 – cão in the Livro dos Mártires.^[13]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses Cão with Latin canis.^[14]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists cão de caça and cão de gado.^[9]
• 1789 – Morais records entre o cão e o lobo.^[10]
• 1877 – first record of the proverb cão que ladra não morde.^[3]
• 1899 – Figueiredo has the senses “piece of artillery” and “unpaid debt”.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. dog, the domestic canine;^[3][15][1] (Portugal) an adult dog.^[3][15][1]
2. Any animal of the dog family.^[3][16]
3. (figurative) A vile or cruel person; a term of abuse.^[3][15]
4. (Brazil, informal) The Devil.^[3][1]
5. The hammer of a firearm.^[3][1]
6. A wooden peg through which the grain runs to the millstone.^[3][15]
7. A firedog holding the logs on a hearth.^[3][17]
8. (Portugal, informal) An unpaid debt.^[3][17]
9. (Portugal, informal) A shop assistant.^[3]
10. (historical) A piece of artillery; an armed boat.^[3][15][1]
11. (astronomy) Cão Maior and Cão Menor, two constellations.^[3][18]

Word family

• canzarrão
• cãozinho
• cão-guia
• cão-lobo
• cão-pastor
• cão-polícia
• cão-salsicha
• cão-tinhoso

Related words

• canalha
• caniche
• canicho
• canídeo
• canino
• Latin canis
• Galician can

Usage notes

The feminine is cadela and the plural cães.^[1][15] The proverb cão que ladra não morde (in Brazil also cão que late não morde) says that one who threatens does not act.^[3][1]

The spelling also had two minor words.^[3] One is an old adjective cão “white-haired”, feminine cã, plural cãos, from Latin cānus (“white”) (see cã): the Crónica Troiana says that men who were young when the war began ia son uellos et cãos “are now old and grey”.^[3][8][17] Vieira already called it little used.^[19] The other, cão or cã, was the title of a khan, an Asian prince;^{[3][15][18][1]} Houaiss, Aurélio and the DLP also give it as a caravanserai or an eastern market, from Persian خان (khān, “inn”).^{[3][15][18][1]}

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g 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. can
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z 27 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cão
4. ^ a b c d Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. cão
5. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1592
6. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. canis
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 794
8. ^ a b 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. cão
9. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cão
10. ^ 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, 228
11. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. cão
12. ^ Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. cão
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cão
14. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cão
15. ^ a b c d e f g h Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cão
16. ^ 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. cão
17. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cão
18. ^ a b c 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. cão
19. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 2, 88