castelão

Forms

castelão m (plural castelãos or castelões or castelães, feminine castelã or (rare) castelona or (rare) casteloa, feminine plural castelãs or (rare) castelonas or (rare) casteloas)^[1] Old spellings include castelããos (plural, 1297), the feminine castellaa (1309), castelaao, castellão and castellãno.^[2][3] Cunha dates castellão to the 16th century.^[4] The plural is castelãos, castelões or castelães, and the feminine castelã, with the rare casteloa and castelona.^[5][6][1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin castellānus (“of a castle, (plural) the garrison of a castle”), written Old Galician-Portuguese castelão in the oldest texts.^[3][4][1] The Latin adjective is formed from castellum (“fort, castle”) with the suffix -ānus.^[7][1] In Medieval Latin the word was first used for an officer in charge of a castle and then its lord.^[8]

The sense “Castilian” is the oldest in Portuguese;^[2] Houaiss takes it as an extension of the same Latin word, while Wiktionary derives it from Castella (“Castile”) with the same suffix.^[3][1] The usual word for “Castilian” today is castelhano, of the same Latin origin but borrowed from Spanish.^[3][1] Lorenzo notes that Machado's first record of it is from 1454.^[2]

The same Latin word is Galician castelán, Spanish castellano, Catalan castlà, Occitan castelan, French châtelain and Italian castellano.^[9][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The first Portuguese record, in 1297, is the plural castelããos “Castilians”.^[2][3] In the Crónica Geral the word also names the Castilian language: et dizia hũa uoz per arauigo et outra per castelão “and he said it once in Arabic and again in Castilian”.^[2] The Miragres de Santiago have the plural castelãos “Castilians”.^[2]

Semantic evolution

The manuscript of the Crónica also uses Castelão as a byname of nobles, as in Pero Fernandez o Castelão.^[2] The sense tied to the castle appears later: Houaiss dates the adjective “guarding a castle” to 1557 and the noun “governor of a castle in the name of the king or a lord” to 1600.^[3] Caldas Aulete defined the castelão as the lord who had the right to fortify his house and to judge within a certain area, and added the black grape grown in the Tagus valley and the Alentejo, also called trincadeira.^[5] The sense “Castilian” is now marked as old or dated.^[10][1]

Timeline

• 995 – castellanus as a place name in a Latin document.^[2]
• 1297 – castelããos “Castilians”.^[2][3]
• 1309 – the feminine castellaa.^[2]
• 1344 – the Crónica writes castellaão for the Castilian language.^[2]
• 1454 – Machado's first record of the doublet castelhano.^[2]
• 1557 – the adjective “that guards a castle”.^[3]
• 1594 – the word in a private letter.^[11]
• 1600 – the noun “governor of a castle”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (history) A feudal lord who lived in a castle and administered justice over an area.^[3][6][12]
2. The governor of a castle in the name of the king or a lord; an alcaide.^[3][13]
3. The owner of a castle (castelo); a castellan.^[3][6][1]
4. (viticulture) A black grape variety widely grown in Portugal; trincadeira.^[3][5]
5. (dated) A Castilian, a native of Castile.^[3][10][1]

Adjective

1. Of or belonging to a castle.^[3][14]
2. That guards a castle.^[3][12]
3. (dated) Of Castile (castelhano).^[3][1]

Related words

• castelo
• castelhano
• Galician castelán
• Spanish castellano

Usage notes

In Brazil castelão was also an informal name for the five-thousand-cruzeiro note issued under President Humberto de Alencar Castelo Branco, formed from his name with the suffix -ão;^[3][6] Aurélio marks it obsolete.^[3][6]

Castelão is also the nickname of the Estádio Governador Plácido Castelo, the football stadium of Fortaleza.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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. castelão
3. ^ 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. castelão
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. castelo
5. ^ a b c 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. castelão
6. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. castelão
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. castellānus
8. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. castellanus
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. castellanus
10. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. castelão
11. ^ 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. castelão
12. ^ a b 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. castelão
13. ^ 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. castelão
14. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1873