chaga

Forms

chaga f (plural chagas)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote chaga and chagua.^[2][3] Houaiss also records chegua in the 14th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin plāga (“blow, wound”), written Old Galician-Portuguese chaga in the oldest texts.^[3][4][1] Latin initial /pl/ became /tʃ/, spelt ⟨ch⟩, as in chantar and chorar.^[5] Houaiss distinguishes this word from the Latin homonym with a short vowel, “stretch of land”, the source of praia.^[3] The semi-learned praga is a doublet.^[1]

The same Latin word is Galician chaga, Spanish llaga, Catalan plaga, French plaie, Italian piaga and Romanian plagă.^[6][1] García de Diego also records a form jaga in the Trás-os-Montes dialect.^[7]

The Latin word belongs with plangō (“to strike”).^[8][1] It matches Ancient Greek πληγή (plēgḗ, “blow, stroke”) in its Doric form, and the DHLF allows either a borrowing from Doric Greek through southern Italy or a native derivative of the same root as the Latin verb.^[9] Wiktionary traces it to Proto-Indo-European *pleh₂g-, an extension of a root meaning “to beat”.^[1] Vieira rejects an older derivation from a Persian word.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria use the word for a wound that the doctors of Pisa could not close (non lle poderon a chaga serrar), and a satirical song of Alfonso X speaks of a sore that is never closed.^[2] The first dated record is a text of 1297: se for mancebo de soldada e se ficar per Razõ das chagas “if he is a hired lad and stays on account of his wounds”.^[2][3] The sense is “wound”, often an open one.^[2]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval texts the word means “wound”: the Crónica Troiana looks for a medicine to heal das chagas, and the Miragres de Santiago speak of the marks of the wounds on the hands.^[2][2] The sense “ulcer, festering sore” is Romance rather than Latin.^[10] Barbosa (1611) renders it with Latin ulcus and Bluteau (1712–1728) defines it as a break in the flesh with pus or rot.^[11][12] Morais (1789) quotes Camões's alma feita em chaga viva “a soul turned into a raw wound” as a figurative use.^[13] The plural chagas names a garden plant with reddish flowers, the capuchinha or nasturtium.^[13][14] In European Portuguese the word is also an informal term for a tiresome person and, pejoratively, for an employer; prison slang used it for a year of sentence or of exile.^[3][15] In heraldry it names each of the small blue shields in the arms of Portugal.^[3]

The word passed into Guinea-Bissau Creole as tcaga.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – the Cantigas de Santa Maria and a song of Alfonso X use chaga.^[2]
• 1297 – first dated record.^[2][3]
• 14th century – the spelling chegua.^[3]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437) has the word.^[16]
• 1554 – a private letter spells it chagua.^[17]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin plaga and ulcus.^[18]
• 1789 – Morais records the plant name chagas and Camões's chaga viva.^[13]

Meanings

Noun

1. An open, festering wound; an ulcer (úlcera).^[3][19][1]
2. The scar (cicatriz) left by such a wound.^[3][19]
3. A cut in the bark of a tree.^[3][19]
4. (figurative) A source of grief or affliction; a harmful social ill; misfortune.^[3][19]
5. (Portugal, informal) A tiresome, irritating person;^[3][20] (pejorative) an employer, boss.^[3][20]
6. (heraldry) Each of the blue shields in the arms of Portugal.^[3]
7. (in the plural) The nasturtium (capuchinha) and its flower.^[20][14]
8. (Portugal, prison slang) A year; a period of exile or sentence.^[3]

Word family

• achagado
• chagado
• chagar

Related words

• praga
• Latin plāga
• Galician chaga
• Spanish llaga

Usage notes

Fixed phrases: chaga viva “deep sorrow, great misery”, and pôr o dedo na chaga “to put one's finger on the cause of the trouble”.^[14][21] In Portugal chaga no bofe was a popular name of tuberculosis.^[3]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. chaga
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. chaga
4. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. chaga
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, 187
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6562
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. plaga
8. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. plāga
9. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. plaie
10. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 720
11. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. chaga
12. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. chaga
13. ^ 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, 260
14. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 1989
15. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. chaga
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. chaga
17. ^ CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. chaga
18. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. chaga
19. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. chaga
20. ^ 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. chaga
21. ^ 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. chaga