cego

Forms

cego (feminine cega, masculine plural cegos, feminine plural cegas, comparable, comparative mais cego, superlative o mais cego or ceguíssimo)^[1] Houaiss records the 14th-century spellings çego, ceguo and seguo.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin caecus (“blind; dark”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cego in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The same Latin word is Galician cego, Spanish ciego, Catalan cec, Old French cieu and Italian cieco.^[4][1]

The Latin word continues Proto-Italic *kaikos, from Proto-Indo-European *keh₂i-ko- (“one-eyed”).^[5][1] Its cognates are Old Irish cáech (“one-eyed”) and Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐌷𐍃 (haihs, “one-eyed”).^[5][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria of the 13th century tell of one who jazia cego / e ar mudo sen fala “lay blind and also mute, without speech”, and of un crerigo que era cego “a cleric who was blind”.^[6] A cantiga d'escarnho of Johan Romeu de Lugo mocks Lopo Lias porque era çego dhuũ olho “because he was blind in one eye”.^[6]

Semantic evolution

Medieval texts already use the word for the blind and, of a pit, for something filled in: the Chronicle of 1344 has a carcaua... era ia toda çega “the ditch was already all blocked”.^[6] Morais in 1789 lists the hard knot (nó cego), the blind gut (intestino cego), the still with one spout and land overgrown with woods.^[7] Figurative senses followed: blinded by passion, absolute (obediência cega), dark.^[2][8] In Brazil the word means a blunt blade, as Aulete already noted, and in football slang a poor player.^[2][9] In colloquial European Portuguese it can mean “stoned, high”.^[1]

Timeline

• 1200s – cego in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[6]
• 1300s – the spellings çego, ceguo and seguo.^[2]
• c. 1430 – cego in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[10]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses it with Latin caecus.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais lists nó cego and intestino cego.^[7]

Meanings

Adjective

1. blind, unable to see.^[2][8][1]
2. (figurative) Blinded by a feeling, no longer in control: cego de raiva.^[2][8][1]
3. That clouds the judgement: paixão cega.^[2][8]
4. Without limit, total: confiança cega.^[2][8]
5. Dark, in which nothing can be seen.^[2][12]
6. Blocked, closed at one end; without openings or windows: furo cego.^[2][13]
7. blunt, of a blade: faca cega.^[2][9][1]
8. Hard to untie: nó cego.^[2][13]
9. (anatomy) Of the caecum (ceco): intestino cego.^[7][14]
10. (Portugal, colloquial) stoned, high on drugs.^[1]

Noun

1. A blind person.^[2][14][1]
2. (Brazil, football, informal) A poor player, a perna-de-pau.^[2]

Word family

• cegueira

Related words

• cegar
• ceco
• Latin caecus
• Spanish ciego

Usage notes

The DLP records não ter com que mandar cantar um cego “not to have the means to pay a blind man to sing”, that is, to be penniless.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cego
3. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cegar
4. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1461
5. ^ a b 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. caecus
6. ^ 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. cego
7. ^ 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, 251
8. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cego
9. ^ 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. cego
10. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cego
11. ^ 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. cego
12. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cego
13. ^ a b 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. cego
14. ^ 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. cego