cabeça

Forms

cabeça f (plural cabeças)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin capitia (“head”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cabeça in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The word replaced classical Latin caput across Hispania, and in Corsican and old Sassarese; most other Romance languages kept the older word, as Portuguese also did in cabo.^[4]

There are two accounts of the Vulgar Latin form.^[2][4] Houaiss, following Nascentes, and Wiktionary take it as the neuter plural, read as a feminine singular, of capitium (“a head covering”), so that the name of the hood passed to the part of the body it covered.^[2][1] The Latin noun is formed from the word for “head” with -ium.^[1][5] Corominas suggests instead a collective plural of the word for “head”, formed like animalia beside animal, first used of heads of cattle, as in medieval Catalan, and then of people.^[4]

The same form is Galician cabeza, Spanish cabeza and Catalan cabeça; Italian cavezza (“halter”) and French chevet (“head of a bed”) go back to the Latin noun in other senses.^[1][6] The Spanish word is first recorded in 957.^[4] Vieira noted the voicing of /p/ to /b/, regular in inherited words such as cabelo and lobo, and the change of /tj/ to ⟨ç⟩, as in preço.^[7]

The word for “head” is Proto-Italic *kaput, and de Vaan compares Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌿𐌱𐌹𐌸 (haubiþ, “head”) and Old Norse hǫfuð.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter of the 11th century has super capeza, a personal name Aluitu Cabeza appears in 1104, and Machado's first date is a cabeza of 1139, all in Latin documents.^[9][2] The vernacular word is recorded from the 13th century, already in the senses “head” and “leading figure”.^[2][3] The Cantigas de Santa Maria tell of a man whose ollos lle verteu / fora da cabeça “eyes burst out of his head”, and the Crónica Troiana counts cattle by the head: forõ mays de çẽ mil cabeças “they were more than a hundred thousand head”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa in 1611 lists dor de cabeça “headache” and the saying isto não tem pés, nem cabeça “this has neither feet nor head”.^[10] Morais in 1789 adds the figurative “chief, ruler” and “author” (of a conspiracy), and the 18th-century dictionaries use it for the mind and judgement, as in meter na cabeça “to put into someone's head”.^[11][12][13] Houaiss dates the head of a nail to 1680.^[2] The cantigas already have voz de cabeça “falsetto”.^[14]

In Bahia the word names a submerged limestone reef in rivers and lagoons.^[15] It passed into the creoles as kabesa in Kabuverdianu, Guinea-Bissau Creole and Kristang, and as cabéça in Macanese.^[1]

Timeline

• 1000s – super capeza in a Latin charter.^[9]
• 1104 – the personal name Aluitu Cabeza.^[9]
• 1139 – cabeza in a Latin charter.^[2]
• 13th century – first vernacular records;^[2][3] cabeçal, cabeção and cabeceira are recorded in the same century.^[2][3]
• 1400 – a fragment of the Flos Sanctorum (copied 1380–1425) uses the word.^[16]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary glosses it with Latin caput.^[17]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists dor de cabeça and cabeçada.^[10]
• 1680 – first date of the sense “head of a nail”.^[2]
• 1789 – Morais records “chief, ruler”.^[11]
• 1881 – cabecilha “ringleader” is taken from Spanish.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The head, the part of the body with the skull and the face, and the front or top part of an animal's body.^[2][18]
2. The part of the head covered with hair.^[2][19]
3. The mind; intelligence, judgement, memory: tem boa cabeça para números.^[2][20]
4. A person known for intelligence: uma das grandes cabeças da física.^[2]
5. The upper, larger or front end of a thing: a cabeça do martelo.^[2][19]
6. The front or beginning: a cabeça da procissão.^[2]
7. A person or animal counted as a unit: trezentas cabeças de gado;^[2][1] por cabeça, per person.^[2][1]
8. (masculine or feminine) The leader or chief of a group.^[2][21][1]

Word family

• cabeçada
• cabeçal
• cabeçalho
• cabeção
• cabeceira
• cabeceiro
• cabeçote
• cabeçudo
• descabeçar
• desencabeçar
• encabeçado
• encabeçar
• escabeçar

Related words

• cabeço
• cabo
• capital
• Galician cabeza

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cabeça
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. cabeça
4. ^ a b c d Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 711
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. capitium
6. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. chevet
7. ^ 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
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ a b c d 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. cabeça
10. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cabeça
11. ^ 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, 204
12. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cabeça
13. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cabeça
14. ^ Universo Cantigas: Glosario da poesía medieval profana galego-portuguesa, A Coruña: Instituto da Lingua e Literatura (ILLA), Universidade da Coruña, https://www.universocantigas.gal, p. s.v. cabeça
15. ^ Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. cabeça
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cabeça
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cabeça
18. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cabeça
19. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cabeça
20. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1592
21. ^ 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. cabeça