campainha

Forms

campainha f (plural campainhas)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote campania and campaynna in the 13th century;^[2][3] campainha appears in the 14th.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is formed from Portuguese campa + -inha as a diminutive of the old form Old Galician-Portuguese campãa (“bell”).^[2][3][4][5] Nascentes compares fontainha beside fonte, from Latin fontana.^[4] Wiktionary and the DLP instead derive it directly from campanīna, a diminutive of the Latin word for “bell”.^[1][6]

The noun for “bell” is from Late Latin campana (“bell”); the intervocalic /n/ was lost, leaving the nasal vowel of the old form, and Nascentes explains the shift of the stress in the modern one.^[3][7] Spanish campanilla, Italian campanella and Old French champenelle are diminutives of the same noun with other suffixes.^[4]

The Latin noun comes from Campānus (“Campanian”): Campania was a centre of bronze-working, and Pliny already speaks of Campanian bronze.^[1] The bare feminine noun is first recorded in 510.^[1] Nascentes reports two older explanations: Adolfo Coelho, following Isidore, took it for a kind of balance invented in Campania, and others said that Saint Paulinus of Nola brought bells into the Church.^[4] The REW gives both senses, “bell” and “balance”.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Lorenzo's first record is in the Cantigas de Santa Maria: fez sõar a campaynna, “made the little bell ring”;^[9] Machado had dated the word only from 1418.^[9] Houaiss and Cunha date it to the 13th century.^[2][3]

Semantic evolution

Cardoso (1569) and Barbosa (1611) translate it with Latin words for a small bell, and Bluteau explains it as the diminutive of campana, “bell”.^[10][11][12] Morais in 1789 adds three transferred senses: the campainhas da garganta at the back of the throat, a plant with a blue flower, and a person who goes around spreading what he has heard.^[13]

The electric bell of doors, clocks and telephones gave the modern main sense.^[2][14] The uvula is still called campainha in the speech of Portugal and Brazil, and in Portugal the word also names the bell on the collar of a flock animal.^[15] The word passed into Ambonese Malay as kampinjang.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – campaynna in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[9][2]
• 14th century – the spelling campainha.^[2]
• 1418 – Machado's first date for the word.^[9]
• 1569 – Cardoso enters campainha with Latin cymbaliolum.^[10]
• 1611 – Barbosa gives tintinnabulum.^[11]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau explains it as the diminutive of campana.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais adds the senses “uvula”, a blue-flowered plant and “gossip”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A small hand bell, used to call someone or call a meeting to order.^[2][5][6][1]
2. A doorbell, an electric or mechanical device at an entrance that a visitor sounds: toquei a campainha duas vezes.^[2][5][1]
3. A similar ringing device in clocks, telephones and other apparatus.^[2][5]
4. (figurative) A person who cannot keep a secret and repeats all he hears.^[2][6]
5. (informal) The uvula.^[2][6][1]
6. (botany) A name for several plants with bell-shaped flowers, especially of the bellflower family and the bindweed family, such as the purple morning glory.^[2][1]
7. (Portugal, regional) A bell hung from the collar of a flock animal.^[15][6]

Related words

• campana
• campanário
• campânula
• Spanish campanilla

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. campainha
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. campa
4. ^ a b c d Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 92
5. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. campainha
6. ^ a b c d e 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. campainha
7. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. campa
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
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. campaynna
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. campainha
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. campainha
12. ^ 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. campainha
13. ^ 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, 222
14. ^ 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. campainha
15. ^ a b 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. campainha