catre

Forms

catre m (plural catres)^[1] Houaiss records catale (1510), catre (1525), cateres (1535), catle (1552) and quatre (1601); Dalgado lists cátele, cátel, catle, cátere and catre.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Tamil கட்டில் (kaṭṭil, “bed, cot”), a word that Tamil shares with Malayalam.^[1][3] Dalgado, followed by Houaiss, Nascentes and Aurélio, takes it from the Malayalam form, with the sense “bed, sofa”, and compares the Konkani diminutive meaning “rough, poor bed”; both go back to a Sanskrit word for a bed frame.^{[3][2][4][5][6]} The Portuguese forms of the 16th century run from cátele through cátere to the modern form, as Dalgado shows from the chroniclers of India; only the last entered the common language.^[3][2]

Among older explanations, Friar João de Sousa derived the word from a Persian word for “wooden chair”, which the older Caldas Aulete repeats.^[3][7] Dalgado knew no such Persian word.^[3] Figueiredo and Silva Bastos took it from Spanish, but the DCECH and the BDELC date Spanish catre only from 1578 and treat it as a loan from Portuguese.^{[8][9][10][6]} The English word cot comes from a related word, Hindi खाट (khāṭ).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Dalgado shows that the chroniclers first met the word in Malabar, for the throne of its kings, a richly covered dais or divan, and for a low oriental bed that was easy to put up and take down.^[3][2] Houaiss's first record is catale in 1510.^[3][2] Fernão Mendes Pinto has a man weeping face down on the catele.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Jerónimo Cardoso already knew in 1563 that the catre came from India: his dictionary has catre da Índia, Latin fulcrum Indicum.^[3] Barbosa (1611) and Pereira (1697) translate it simply as a bed.^[11][12] Bluteau (1712) describes a small bed with low posts, and Morais (1813) a low bed with folding legs held by girths.^{[11][12][13][14]} In India the word came to mean a canvas litter hung from a pole and carried by four men.^[3][15]

The modern senses are a folding camp bed and a rough, poor bed.^[2][5][16] In the Brazilian interior it is a bed laced with strips of ox-hide, and on the Pampas a folding bed of leather or canvas.^[17][18] Southern Brazil uses the word for a kind of raft, and Houaiss and Aurélio record it as a name of the shiny cowbird.^[2][5]

Timeline

• 1510 – first record, spelt catale.^[2]
• 1525 – first record of the spelling catre.^[2]
• 1563 – Cardoso lists catre da Índia.^[3]
• 1578 – first record of the Spanish catre.^[10]
• 1611 – Barbosa translates it as Latin lectus.^[11]
• 1712 – Bluteau describes it as a small bed with low posts.^[13]
• 1813 – Morais describes the folding legs.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. A folding camp bed or travelling bed, usually of canvas.^[2][5][1]
2. (nautical) A canvas bunk slung between the deck beams of a ship.^[2]
3. A rough, poor bed: Dormia num catre de tábuas.^{[2][5][16][1]}
4. (India) A canvas litter hung from a pole.^[15][3]
5. (southern Brazil) A kind of raft.^[2][5]
6. (Brazil, ornithology) The shiny cowbird (Molothrus bonariensis), the chupim.^[2][5]

Related words

• Spanish catre

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. catre
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Dalgado, Sebastião Rodolfo (1919–1921), Glossário luso-asiático, 2 vols., Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, p. 1, 234
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 104
5. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. catre
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos
7. ^ 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. catre
8. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. catre
9. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. catre
10. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 925
11. ^ a b c Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. catre
12. ^ 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. catre
13. ^ 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. catre
14. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 362
15. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. catre
16. ^ 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. catre
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. catre
18. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. catre