carvão

Forms

carvão m (plural carvões)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote carvon, plural carvões and carvõoes; the spellings caruõ (14th century) and caruam (15th century) follow.^[2][3][4] Pereira (1697) and Bluteau (1712–1728) head the word carvam.^[5][6] Nunes records a popular form caravão.^[7]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin carbo (“a piece of charcoal”), written Old Galician-Portuguese carvon in the oldest texts.^[3][4][1][8] The Latin group -rb- became -rv-, as in árvore, sorver and turvar.^[7] The old ending -on, plural -õoes, gave modern -ão, which the 15th century wrote ⟨-am⟩.^[3]

The same Latin word is Galician carbón, Spanish carbón, Catalan carbó, French charbon, Italian carbone and Romanian cărbune.^[9][1] Medieval Castilian texts spell it both Old Spanish carvón and carbón.^[10] Wiktionary calls the learned carbono its doublet.^[1]

De Vaan finds the Indo-European origin of the Latin word uncertain: its meaning is very specific, and the suffix is missing from the words usually compared, such as 𐌷𐌰𐌿𐍂𐌹 (hauri, “coal”) and hyrr (“fire”), from *hurja-.^[11] Wiktionary likewise treats a root Proto-Indo-European *kerh₃- (“heat, fire”) as doubtful.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria already use the word for charcoal and as the measure of blackness: a church burned so fiercely que sse fez toda carvon “that it turned wholly to charcoal”, and a lady became mais negra que un carvon “blacker than a coal”.^[2] A satirical cantiga of Alfonso X has negra come carvon “black as coal”.^[2][12]

Semantic evolution

In the 17th and 18th centuries the word meant above all wood charcoal: Barbosa (1611) renders it with Latin carbo and lists carvoeiro “charcoal maker”, and Bluteau describes a half-burnt stump that, once put out, can burn again as embers with little flame or smoke.^[13][6] The 19th-century dictionaries add mineral coal (carvão de pedra, carvão mineral, hulha) and animal charcoal, and Figueiredo (1899) the drawing made with charcoal.^[14][15]

Plant pathology took the word for smut, a fungus disease that covers cereals with black masses of spores, and for the fungi that cause it.^[3][1] Brazilian slang uses it for money and, in Aurélio, for a newspaper.^[3][16] Regional surveys record it in Brazil for soot and for a badly formed ear of maize, and in northern Portugal for the Christmas log.^[17]

Timeline

• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria write carvon and carvões.^[2][3]
• 14th century – the plural carvõoes and the spelling caruõ.^[3]
• 15th century – the spelling caruam.^[3]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists carvão with carvoeiro.^[13]
• 1697 – Pereira heads the word Carvam.^[5]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines carvam as a half-burnt stump that can be kindled again.^[6]
• 1899 – Figueiredo lists vegetable, mineral and animal charcoal and the charcoal drawing.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. coal, charcoal: a solid black fuel of mineral or vegetable origin made mostly of carbon, as in carvão mineral and carvão vegetal.^[3][16][1]
2. Any matter charred by fire that no longer flames; a dead ember, a tição.^[3][16]
3. (informal) A piece of food burnt black.^[3][18]
4. (art) A stick or pencil of charcoal for drawing; a drawing made with it.^[3][16]
5. (Brazil, slang) money.^[3]
6. (Brazil, slang) A newspaper.^[16]
7. (plant pathology) smut, a fungus disease of cereals with black masses of spores; the fungi of the genera Ustilago, Tilletia and Urocystis that cause it.^[3][1]

Word family

• carvoeiro
• carvoaria
• carvoeira
• carvoento
• encarvoar

Related words

• carbono
• carbônico
• carbonizar
• Latin carbo
• Galician carbón

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. carvon
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. carvão
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. carvão
5. ^ a b Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. carvam
6. ^ a b c Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. carvam
7. ^ a b Nunes, José Joaquim (1945), Compêndio de gramática histórica portuguesa (fonética e morfologia), 5th ed., Lisboa: Livraria Clássica, p. 128
8. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. carvão
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1674
10. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 856
11. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ 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. carvon
13. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. carvão
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. carvão
15. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. carvão
16. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. carvão
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. carvão
18. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. carvão