centurião

Forms

centurião m (plural centuriões)^[1] Medieval texts have the plurals centuriões and centuryõoes in the 14th century and centuriãaos in the 15th, beside the singular centuriom.^[2] Cunha records çenturiam in the 15th century.^[3]

Etymology

It is borrowed from Latin centuriō (“commander of a century”), through its oblique stem.^[2][3][1][4] The same Latin word gives Spanish centurión.^[5]

The Latin noun is formed from centuria (“a division of a hundred men”) with the suffix -ō.^[6][1] Wiktionary analyses that noun as a compound of centum (“hundred”) and vir (“man”).^[1] De Vaan traces the numeral to Proto-Indo-European *dḱm̥tom (“hundred”).^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word is first recorded in the 14th century, in the plural forms centuriões and centuryõoes, for the Roman officer who led a century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Cardoso's Portuguese–Latin dictionary of 1569 simply renders it with Latin centurio, and Barbosa in 1611 explains it as a captain of a hundred soldiers, citing Caesar.^[8][9] Vieira's dictionary quotes the Monarchia Lusitana for a captain of a hundred horsemen whom the Romans called a centurion.^[10] The Aulete Digital compares the rank to that of a captain in the Brazilian army.^[11] Houaiss and Aurélio give centenário and centúrio as synonyms.^[2][4]

Timeline

• 1300s – first records, in the plural: centuriões, centuryõoes.^[2]
• 1400s – centuriãaos, centuriom and çenturiam.^[2][3]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary lists Centurião.^[8]
• 1611 – Barbosa defines it as a captain of a hundred soldiers.^[9]
• 1899 – Figueiredo derives it from Latin centurio, itself from centuria.^[12]

Meanings

Noun

1. (history, Ancient Rome) A centurion, the officer in command of a centúria, a unit of about a hundred soldiers in the Roman legião.^{[2][4][13][1]}

Related words

• centúria
• centúrio
• cento
• Latin centuria
• Spanish centurión

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. centurião
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. centurião
4. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. centurião
5. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. centurión
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
7. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
8. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. centurião
9. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. centurião
10. ^ 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, 170
11. ^ 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. centurião
12. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. centurião
13. ^ 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. centurião