cervo

Forms

cervo m (plural cervos)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote cervo, ceruo and çeruo; the 14th century has seruo and the 15th çervo.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cervus (“stag, deer”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cervo and Old Galician-Portuguese ceruo in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Houaiss derives the modern zoological term from the scientific Latin genus name New Latin Cervus (described in 1758), itself modelled on the Latin word.^[2]

The same Latin word is Galician cervo, Spanish ciervo, Catalan cérvol, French cerf, Italian cervo and Romanian cerb.^[1][4]

The Latin word goes back to Proto-Italic *kerwos and Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂wós (“horned”), from the root of “horn” (Proto-Indo-European *ḱerh₂-); Welsh carw “stag” and Ancient Greek κεραός (keraós, “horned”) are related.^[5][1] The shift from “horned” to “deer” may be a development shared by Italic and Celtic.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin document of 1103 already lists Iº coiro de ceruo “one deerskin”.^[6] Machado dated the Latin record to 1139 and the first Portuguese one to 1262, according to Lorenzo.^[6] In the cantigas d'amigo of Pero Meogo the girl asks the stags: Ai cervos do monte, vim-vos preguntar “Oh stags of the hill, I came to ask you”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

In the cantigas the stag is also a figure for the lover.^[8] Since Morais (1789) the dictionaries mark the word as poetic, a literary synonym of veado.^[9][10] In Brazil, where no species of the genus lives, it is a popular name of the marsh deer, cervo-do-pantanal.^[11][2] Because of the antlers it is a jocular or derogatory word for a deceived husband.^[2][12]

Timeline

• 1103 – ceruo in a Latin document.^[6]
• 1262 – first record in Portuguese.^[6]
• 13th century – the cantigas of Pero Meogo.^[3][7]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses Cervo as Latin cervus.^[13]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau quotes Camões's eclogue Como Cervo ferido.^[14]
• 1789 – Morais marks the word as poetic.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. deer, stag: a ruminant of the genus Cervus, of the northern hemisphere; a veado.^[2][15][1]
2. (Brazil) The marsh deer, Blastocerus dichotomus.^[2][16]
3. (figurative, derogatory) A cuckold.^[2][12]

Word family

• cerva
• cervídeo

Related words

• cerval
• cervino
• Latin cervus
• Galician cervo
• Spanish ciervo

Usage notes

Priberam warns against confusing cervo with servo “servant”.^[17]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cervo
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cervo
4. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1850
5. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
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. cervo
7. ^ a b Lopes, Graça Videira; Ferreira, Manuel Pedro et al. (2011–), Cantigas Medievais Galego-Portuguesas [online database], Lisboa: Instituto de Estudos Medievais, FCSH/NOVA, https://cantigas.fcsh.unl.pt, p. s.v. cervo
8. ^ 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. cervo
9. ^ a b 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, 258
10. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 377
11. ^ 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. cervo
12. ^ 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. cervo
13. ^ 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. cervo
14. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cervo
15. ^ 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. cervo
16. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cervo
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cervo