campanha

Forms

campanha f (plural campanhas)^[1]

Etymology

It comes from Late Latin campānia (“open country, plain”).^[2][3][4][1] Houaiss quotes Machado's view that the Latin word is the neuter plural of the adjective campāneus, used as a noun, or else an extension of the place name Campānia, the fertile plain around Naples.^[2] Wiktionary derives it from the adjective, which is formed from campus (“field, plain”).^[1] Cunha lists the word under campo.^[5]

The same Late Latin word is Spanish campaña, Catalan campanya, Old Occitan campanha, French champagne and Italian campagna, and French campagne is borrowed from the Italian word.^[6] The French word, as the name of the province, gave the name of its wine, which Portuguese borrowed as champanhe.^[7][1]

The Latin noun goes back to *kampo- (“field”).^[8] Wiktionary gives the traditional derivation from Proto-Indo-European *kh₂emp- (“to bend, curve”), with Lithuanian kam̃pas (“corner”) as a cognate.^[1] De Vaan finds the Latin ⟨a⟩ hard to explain and suggests a European substrate word of farming vocabulary.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to 1558 without giving the sense of that record.^[2] The oldest sense the dictionaries give is “wide open country, a plain”, which Cunha dates to the 17th century.^[2][5] According to Machado, quoted by Houaiss, the military sense appeared in French only in the 17th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Bluteau's Vocabulario treats the word as a military term: the operations of one year of war, and the countryside through which an army moves, with a quotation from a sermon of António Vieira, estando El-Rey de Israel em Campanha.^[9] Folqman (1755) gives the phrase começar a campanha “to open the campaign”, and Morais (1789) adds the field gun, peça de campanha.^[10][11] Vieira's dictionary still gives “a great stretch of plain” first, with the poetic campanha do mar “the expanse of the sea”, and then troop movements and campaigns such as the Peninsular campaign.^[12]

Figueiredo (1899) records the extended sense “a set of efforts towards a given end”, from which come the political and advertising campaigns of today.^[13][2] Brazilian Portuguese kept the old sense of open country: in Rio Grande do Sul the campanha is the rolling grassland of the cattle ranches, the southern half of the state and the pampa beyond it, and the word is used for the country as opposed to the town.^[2][14] Other regional senses are the season in which farmers in Guinea-Bissau sell their groundnuts, rice and coconuts, the time a Portuguese fishing boat spends at sea, and in Brazilian sport the record of a team over a season.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 1558 – first record.^[2]
• 1647 – a private letter has campanhas.^[15]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau describes the word as a military term.^[9]
• 1755 – Folqman gives começar a campanha.^[10]
• 1789 – Morais defines it as the field where the army moves and its operations in a year or a season, and lists the peça de campanha.^[11]
• 1871 – Vieira's dictionary has a campanha do mar.^[12]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the sense “a set of efforts towards an end”, and the Brazilian sense “open, uninhabited country”.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A wide stretch of open, flat country; a plain.^[2][3][4]
2. (military) A campaign: a series of military operations in one area and period; a phase of a war: a campanha de Itália.^[2][3][4]
3. (military, Portugal) The ground where troops move; a military encampment.^[2][4][16]
4. An organised series of actions to reach an aim within a given time, often with publicity: campanha eleitoral, campanha publicitária, uma campanha contra a fome.^[2][3][4]
5. (Brazil, Rio Grande do Sul) Rolling grassland where cattle-raising prevails; the region of southern Rio Grande do Sul formed by it.^[2][3][14]
6. (Brazil, sport) The record of an athlete, a team or racehorses over a season or a series of competitions.^[2][17]
7. (Portugal, fishing) The time between a fishing boat's departure and its return to port.^[2][4]
8. (Guinea-Bissau) The yearly season in which farmers sell their groundnuts, rice and coconuts to merchants; the produce bought in that season.^[2][4]

Related words

• campo
• champanhe
• Latin campus
• Spanish campaña

Usage notes

Abrir campanha means “to begin military operations”.^[2] Michaelis and the Porto Editora dictionary also record campanha as a form of companha “company, crew”, from Late Latin compania.^[18][19] In rural Brazilian speech a survey recorded campanha for “a great difficulty” and for field work done by a group of men.^[20]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. campanha
3. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. campanha
4. ^ a b c d e f g h 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. campanha
5. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. campo
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1557
7. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. champagne
8. ^ a b de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. campus
9. ^ 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. campanha
10. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. campanha
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, 222
12. ^ 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, 68
13. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 238
14. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. campanha
15. ^ 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. campanha
16. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. campanha
17. ^ 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. campanha
18. ^ 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. campanha
19. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1715
20. ^ 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. campanha