casal

Forms

casal m (plural casais)^[1] Medieval texts write casal, the plural casaes and cassaaes, and quasal (1421); Houaiss also lists casar (1272) among the old forms.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin casālis (“of a house, belonging to a house”), an adjective that Medieval Latin used as a noun, casale, for a group of houses, the bounds of an estate, or a farm.^[2][3][1] The oldest texts write it Old Galician-Portuguese casal.^[1][4] Several Portuguese dictionaries derive it instead from the Portuguese word for “house” with the suffix -al.^[5][6][7]

The same Latin word is Italian casale, Old French chesal and Spanish casal.^[1] The Latin adjective is formed from casa (“hut, cottage”) with the suffix -ālis.^[1] De Vaan calls the origin of the Latin noun uncertain: it may come from a form *katja related to a root for plaiting, or be connected with words for “hut” or “chamber” in other Indo-European languages.^[8]

Machado, as Houaiss reports, takes it from the owners of such a property, hence a pair, a married couple.^[2] Nascentes sees in it the idea of male and female living together on one farm.^[5] Corominas considers this sense a Portuguese development.^[2]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first date, 870, comes from a Latin charter, and the vernacular plural casaes is recorded in 1255.^[2] A document of 1275 has con sous casaes “with their buildings”, the word meaning a group of houses or farm buildings.^[4] In a cantiga d'escarnho by Afons' Eanes do Coton it is a country house (nen ar sej' eu eno vosso casal).^[4][9]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval charters a casal is a peasant holding, a house with the cultivated land of one family; historians differ on whether it was a dependent or a free holding.^[4] The 16th- and 17th-century dictionaries still know only this rural sense: Cardoso (1569) renders it with Latin praediolum “small estate”, and Barbosa (1611) has casalinho for a little one.^[10][11] Morais (1789) is the first dictionary to give the sense “pair”, and puts it first: a male and female, hum casal de pombos “a pair of pigeons”, then husband and wife, then a country house and a hamlet.^[3][12] Vieira (1871–1874) records bens de casal, the property a husband and wife hold in common.^[13]

The rural sense lives on in Portugal and in dialect use: in Trás-os-Montes a small enclosed plot near, but never beside, the owner's house, and in regional crafts a box for the balls of yarn that feed a warping frame, or a pair of millstones.^[2][7][14] In Rio Grande do Sul the word is used for any male and female pair of animals and for a brother and sister or two cousins.^[15] Spanish of the River Plate and the Canary Islands took casal “breeding pair” from Portuguese.^[16]

Timeline

• 870 – a Latin charter has the word, as Houaiss dates it.^[2]
• 1255 – the vernacular plural casaes.^[2]
• 1275 – con sous casaes in a Galician document.^[4]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders Casal with Latin praediolum.^[10]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists casalinho.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais gives a male and female, and husband and wife, before the rural senses.^[12]
• 1871 – Vieira records bens de casal.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. A hamlet: a small settlement of a few houses.^[2][17][18]
2. A small rural property, a farmhouse with its land.^{[2][17][18][1]}
3. A pair made up of a male and a female.^[2][19][1]
4. A couple: husband and wife, or two people in a love relationship.^[2][19][1]
5. Any two like things; a pair (par).^[2][18]
6. A box with compartments for the balls of yarn fed to a warping frame; an urdidor.^[2][17]
7. (Portugal) Husband.^[2]
8. (Trás-os-Montes) A small enclosed plot outside the village, never attached to the owner's house.^[2][7]

Related words

• casa
• casar
• Italian casale
• Spanish casal

Usage notes

Cama de casal is a double bed and quarto de casal a double room.^[1] The plural casais is also a form of the verb casar “to marry”.^[20]

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 e f g h i j k l m n o p Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. casal
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. casal
4. ^ a b c d e 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. casal
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 101
6. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 260
7. ^ a b c Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. casal
8. ^ 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. casa
9. ^ 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. casal
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. casal
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. casal
12. ^ 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, 241
13. ^ 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, 131
14. ^ 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. casal
15. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. casal
16. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. casa
17. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. casal
18. ^ a b c 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. casal
19. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. casal
20. ^ 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. casal