ceia

Forms

ceia f (plural ceias)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote cẽa, çẽa, cea and çea, and the 15th century also çééa and ceea.^[2][3][4] Cea remained the Portuguese spelling until the 16th century, and ceia only spread after that.^[4] Morais (1813) still heads the word cea but calls ceya the better spelling.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cēna (“dinner, the main meal of the day”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cẽa in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][4] The Latin /n/ between vowels was lost, as in aveia from avēna, and the nasal vowel of the old form shows where it stood.^[6][4] The old form, later written without the tilde, remained the usual one until the 16th century, when the modern spelling took its place.^[4]

The same Latin word is Galician cea, Spanish cena, Italian cena, Romanian cină and Sardinian chena.^[7][1][8] The Spanish form is recorded from about 1140, in the poem of the Cid.^[9][10]

The Latin word had an older form cēsna, cited by Festus, and goes back to Proto-Italic *kertsnā (“meal”), whose Oscan and Umbrian relatives also meant “meal”.^[11] De Vaan follows the traditional derivation from Proto-Indo-European *kert-s-nh₂- (“portion”), a “cut part” of food, from a root meaning “to cut”.^[11] Schrijver instead connects it with Cerēs, from a root meaning “grain”, an explanation de Vaan reports without adopting.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the Cantigas de Santa Maria (13th century) the word names the Last Supper: o dia da gran Çẽa, pois ouv' os pees lavados / a seus descipulos “the day of the great Supper, when he had washed the feet of his disciples”.^[4] The secular cantigas use it for the evening meal, contrasted with the midday jantar: aa cea nen ao jantar “neither at supper nor at dinner”.^[4][12]

Semantic evolution

Viterbo explains that in the Middle Ages people took only a morsel in the morning, the almorço, and the one real meal of the day came towards evening; he quotes a Latin grant of 1212 to the monastery of Pendorada that provides for a good supper on Maundy Thursday.^[13] A will of 1314 from Lamego leaves an ox, a pig and two flitches of bacon por nossas Cêas “for our suppers”.^[13] Morais records Quinta feira da Cea “Maundy Thursday”.^[14]

As the main meal moved to midday the word kept its evening place: Bluteau defines it as the meal of the night, and Caldas Aulete as the last meal before going to bed.^[15][16] A Portuguese source of about 1864, describing an earlier age, notes that jantar then meant the midday meal and that the evening meal was called ceia.^[17] In Portugal it is now usually a light meal taken late, after dinner, and in the countryside it can still be one of the main meals of the day.^[18][19]

The religious sense, the Last Supper and the rite of communion, runs through the whole history of the word.^[2][4] Old Tupi borrowed it as searama.^[1]

Timeline

• 1212 – a Latin grant to the monastery of Pendorada provides for a supper on Maundy Thursday.^[13]
• 13th century – Çẽa for the Last Supper in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, and cea in the secular cantigas.^[4][2]
• 1314 – por nossas Cêas “for our suppers” in a will from Lamego.^[13]
• c. 1430 – cea in the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437).^[20]
• 1446 – çea in the Vida de Santa Maria Egipcíaca.^[21]
• 15th century – the spelling çééa.^[2]
• 16th century – first record of the spelling ceia.^[3][4]
• 1569 – Cardoso heads the word Cea.^[22]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau defines cea as the meal of the night.^[15]
• 1813 – Morais prefers the spelling ceya to cea.^[5]

Meanings

Noun

1. The act of having supper.^[2]
2. supper, the last meal of the day, usually eaten in the evening: Ficaram para a ceia depois do teatro.^[2][23][1]
3. (Portugal) A late, light meal taken after dinner, or a special late dinner.^[18][19]
4. (Christianity, usually capitalised) The Last Supper of Jesus with the apostles, also called Santa Ceia, Última Ceia and Ceia do Senhor.^[2][23]
5. (Christianity) The Eucharist, the rite of communion.^[2]
6. A painting of the Last Supper.^[2][24]

Word family

• cear

Related words

• cenáculo
• Latin cēna
• Galician cea
• Spanish cena

Usage notes

In parts of Portugal the plural ceias was the bread given to farm workers in place of their evening meal, which they took home: Viterbo already records it near Lamego.^[19][13]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. ceia
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. ceia
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. çẽa
5. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 368
6. ^ 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, 158
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1806
8. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cena
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 23
10. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cena
11. ^ a b c de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
12. ^ 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. cẽa
13. ^ a b c d e Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 259
14. ^ 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, 250
15. ^ 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. cea
16. ^ 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. ceia
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. ceia
18. ^ 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. ceia
19. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1930
20. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cea
21. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. çea
22. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cea
23. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. ceia
24. ^ 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. ceia