cabana

Forms

cabana f (plural cabanas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin capanna (“hut”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cabana in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Houaiss calls the Late Latin word of doubtful origin, and Wiktionary also records the spelling cabanna.^[2][1] Isidore of Seville is the first to record it, saying that country people call a small hut by this name, and the spelling with ⟨b⟩ already appears in the Reichenau Glosses of the 6th century.^[4][5]

The same Latin word is Galician cabana, Spanish cabaña, Catalan cabana, Occitan cabana and Italian capanna; French cabane was taken from the Occitan word.^[6][1] Corominas thinks a Celtic origin likely, because the suffix ⟨-anna⟩ is Celtic, and notes Jud's view and Pokorny's proposal of an Illyrian source; he rejects a link with canaba (“hut, storehouse”), a word that would need an unlikely metathesis.^[7] Wiktionary's Latin entry, on the other hand, finds the metathesis reasonable and also lists a pre-Roman substrate and Latin cappa (“cloak”) among the possibilities.^[1]

Etymologists of the 19th century disagreed: Vieira says that Morais proposed an Arabic source that never existed, and himself took the word for Celtic, comparing a Welsh and Gaelic word for a hut.^[8] Figueiredo also called the Medieval Latin word Celtic.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's earliest date, 952, is for the plural cabanas, and comes from Machado's records.^[2] Cunha dates the word to the 13th century.^[3] The Galician Crónica Troiana tells of people who take branches of balsam and make cabanas in which to hide, the sense “huts” of the oldest texts.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word has always meant a small, poor dwelling of rough materials.^[2][3] The 16th- and 17th-century dictionaries render it by Latin tugurium and casa, a peasant's hut.^[11][12] Bluteau adds that in Lisbon cabanas were a kind of covered chaise without a body, a sense Morais repeats.^[13][14] Morais describes the cabana as the house of shepherds and fishermen, and also records the stalls of fruit sellers and a phrase of the game of truque.^[14]

In Portugal the word has regional senses: a large rough building in the Alentejo, a shed beside the house for straw and farm tools, a stack of maize straw, and a part of the yearly wage paid in kind.^{[15][16][17][18]} Michaelis also lists a masculine cabana in slang, the thief who keeps watch while his partner steals.^[19]

Timeline

• 952 – Houaiss's earliest date, for the plural cabanas, after Machado.^[2]
• 13th century – first record of the word in Portuguese according to Cunha.^[3]
• 1273 – Cabana as a place name in a Galician document, again in 1275.^[10]
• 15th century – the singular cabana in Houaiss's historical forms.^[2]
• 1513 – cabana in the Livro dos Mártires.^[20]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary glosses Cabana with Latin tugurium.^[11]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau records cabanas as a kind of covered chaise in Lisbon.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais defines the word as the hut of shepherds and fishermen.^[14]
• 1871 – Vieira rejects an Arabic etymology and calls the word Celtic.^[8]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small, simple hut or cabin, usually in the country or in a remote place, built of cheap rough materials such as straw and branches; a choupana: Os pastores dormiam numa cabana de colmo.^[2][21][1]
2. A light shelter, a kind of barraca.^[22]
3. (Portugal, regional) A shed beside the house where straw and farm tools are kept.^[16]
4. (Portugal) The part of the yearly wage paid in kind to farm workers.^[18]
5. (slang, masculine) The lookout who watches while an accomplice steals.^[19]

Word family

• cabaneiro
• cabaneira

Related words

• Late Latin capanna
• Galician cabana
• Spanish cabaña

Usage notes

Houaiss enters a second cabana in aeronautics, the bundle of struts used as bracing for an aircraft's wings, which he takes from English cabane, the frame on the fuselage that holds up the wings.^[2]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cabana
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cabana
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 83
5. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1624
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 708
8. ^ 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. 2, 3
9. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 218
10. ^ 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. cabana
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cabana
12. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cabana
13. ^ a b Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cabana
14. ^ a b c 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, 204
15. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. cabana
16. ^ 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. cabana
17. ^ Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. cabana
18. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1591
19. ^ a b 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. cabana
20. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cabana
21. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cabana
22. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cabana