cavalo

Forms

cavalo m (plural cavalos, feminine égua, feminine plural éguas)^[1] Houaiss lists the medieval spellings cavalo and cauallo (13th century) and quaualo (15th century).^[2] From the 16th century to the 20th the usual spelling was cavallo, the form Bluteau, Morais and Vieira head.^[3][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin caballus (“horse”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cavalo in the oldest texts.^[2][6][1] The same Latin word is Galician cabalo, Spanish caballo, Catalan cavall, Occitan caval, French cheval, Italian cavallo and Romanian cal.^[7][1]

In Latin the word was a gelding or a work horse, a nag, and only in popular Latin did it become the general word for “horse”, displacing equus in all the Romance languages.^[2][8][9] Niermeyer calls the word Celtic, “gelding, work horse”.^[10]

Its origin is disputed: Wiktionary gives the usual derivation from *kaballos and *kaballos, perhaps in the end a wandering word from Asia.^[1] De Vaan notes that Greek καβάλλης (kabállēs, “nag”) is attested too early to be a loan from Latin, reports Beekes's view of an Asian loanword (compare کول (kaval, “horse of mixed blood”)), and concludes that the Latin word must be a borrowing of unclear source.^[11][1] The OLD and Wiktionary also compare the Slavic word for “mare”, *kobyla.^[1][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to 870, from a Latin charter that writes cauallus; this is a Latin text.^[2] In Galician-Portuguese it appears in the 13th century: the Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of un cavalo de Çuz / que corre mais que estruz “a horse of Sous that runs faster than an ostrich”, and a cantiga of the Cancioneiro da Ajuda has a pee que de cavalo “on foot or on horseback”.^[13][14]

Semantic evolution

Beside its basic sense the word grew many transferred ones: Morais in 1789 lists a cavallo “on horseback”, the knight of chess and a venereal sore among them.^[4] Modern dictionaries add a soldier of the cavalry, a rude or violent person, the rootstock on which a graft is made, the vaulting horse of gymnastics, the horsepower (from cavalo-vapor), a cooper's bench, and in slang heroin.^[2][15][16] In Brazil it is also the medium who “receives” a spirit in Afro-Brazilian religion (cavalo de santo) and the eleventh group of the jogo do bicho.^[2][15]

From Portuguese the word passed into Old Tupi as kabaru, whence Nheengatu kawarú, into Kariri and other languages of Brazil, and into Papiamentu as kabai.^[1]

Timeline

• 870 – a Latin charter writes cauallus.^[2]
• 13th century – cavalo and cauallo;^[2][6][13] un cavalo de Çuz in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][6][13]
• 15th century – the spelling quaualo.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists cavalo bravo and cair do cavalo.^[17]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau heads the word cavallo.^[3]
• 1789 – Morais lists the chess knight and a cavallo.^[4]
• 1871 – Vieira compares Greek kaballês and notes that the word drove out Latin equus.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The horse, Equus caballus; the female is the égua.^[2][15][1]
2. (figurative, derogatory) A rude, coarse or violent person.^[2][15]
3. (chess) The knight.^[2][1]
4. (physics) horsepower, short for cavalo-vapor.^[2][1]
5. (agriculture) The rootstock on which a graft is made.^[2][1]
6. (gymnastics) The vaulting horse or pommel horse.^[15][18]
7. (military) A soldier of the cavalry (cavalaria).^[2][16]
8. A cooper's bench; tongs for moving pieces of a stove.^[2][15]
9. (slang) heroin.^[16][1]
10. (Brazil, religion) A medium who is possessed by a spirit.^[2][15]

Word family

• cavalaria
• cavalinho
• cavalo-marinho
• cavalo-vapor
• acavalado

Related words

• cavaleiro
• cavalgar
• cavalgadura
• égua
• Latin caballus
• Galician cabalo
• Spanish caballo

Usage notes

A cavalo is “on horseback” and also “astride” anything;^[19][2] cavalo de batalha is a war horse and, figuratively, someone's favourite argument.^[19][2]

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 m n o p q r s t Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cavalo
3. ^ 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. cavallo
4. ^ a b c 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, 248
5. ^ 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, 154
6. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cavalo
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1440
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 1, 708
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. cheval
10. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. caballus
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. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. caballus
13. ^ a b c 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. cavalo
14. ^ 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. cavalo
15. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cavalo
16. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cavalo
17. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cavalo
18. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1914
19. ^ a b 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. cavalo