cheio

Forms

cheio (feminine cheia, masculine plural cheios, feminine plural cheias, comparable, comparative mais cheio, superlative o mais cheio or cheiíssimo, diminutive cheiinho, augmentative cheião)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote chẽo and cheo (feminine chẽa, chea); the spelling cheio is recorded from the 15th century, beside chééo.^[2][3][4] Morais (1813) still heads the word cheo and remarks that cheyo would be the better spelling.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin plēnus (“full”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cheo in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][6] It is the popular counterpart of the learned pleno, taken from the same Latin word.^[2] The Latin /pl/ at the start of the word became /tʃ/, written ⟨ch⟩, as in other inherited words.^[7] The old forms have no /n/ between the vowels, only a nasal vowel, marked with a tilde; the form with /j/ between the vowels is recorded from the 15th century.^[2][4]

The same Latin word is Galician cheo, Spanish lleno, Catalan ple, French plein, Italian pieno and Romanian plin.^[8][1]

Wiktionary traces the Latin adjective through Proto-Italic *plēnos to Proto-Indo-European *pl̥h₁nós (“full”), the source of Ancient Greek πλήρης (plḗrēs), Sanskrit पूर्ण (pūrṇa) and Old English full.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria of the second half of the 13th century have hũa nave… chẽa de romeus “a ship full of pilgrims” and o demo cheo d'enveja “the devil full of envy”; the troubadour Pedr' Amigo de Sevilha calls a man mui cheo de mal “very full of wickedness”.^[4] In these records, as in most medieval ones, the adjective is followed by de and the thing that fills.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The medieval texts use the word for vessels and places filled with something and, figuratively, for people filled with a feeling or a quality; the Miragres de Santiago have chea de graça “full of grace”.^[4] The feminine became a noun, chea “a mass of water, a flood”, recorded in the Cantigas and surviving as cheia “flood, high water”.^[9][8]

Modern senses extend the idea of fullness: “crowded”, “busy” (of a day), “plump” (of a person), “pregnant” (of an animal or, informally, a woman) and “drunk”.^[2][10] In Brazil estar cheio is “to be fed up”, while in Portugal it is “to have eaten one's fill”.^[2][11] As a noun the word names the thick stroke of a letter and, in music, the full sound of all the voices or organ stops together.^[2][12] The word passed into Kabuverdianu as cheiu and txeu and into Guinea-Bissau Creole as tciu.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century, second half – chẽa de romeus and cheo d'enveja in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[4]
• c. 1350 – chẽo in the Trasladação de S. Nicolau.^[13]
• 15th century – first record of the spelling cheio.^[2]
• 1537 – cheos in a private letter.^[14]
• 1813 – Morais heads the word cheo and prefers cheyo.^[5]
• 1899 – Figueiredo lists the phrase em cheio “squarely, fully”.^[15]

Meanings

Adjective

1. full, filled to capacity.^[2][10][1]
2. crowded, packed with people.^[2][12][1]
3. Full of, abounding in something; covered with something that does not belong there.^[2][10]
4. Marked by a feeling or a quality: cheio de medo.^[2][10]
5. Solid, not hollow; unbroken (of a line or stroke).^[2][10]
6. Busy, with no free time (of a day or a period).^[2]
7. Plump, well-fed; round (of a face or a figure).^[2][1]
8. (informal) pregnant (of an animal, and of a woman); drunk.^[2][16]
9. Full (of the moon); at high water (of the tide).^[2]
10. (Brazil, informal) fed up, at the end of one's patience;^[2][1] (Portugal) having eaten one's fill.^[2][1]

Noun

1. (typography) The thick stroke of a letter.^[2][12]
2. (music) The tutti: all the voices or instruments, or all the organ stops, together.^[12][16]

Interjection

1. (nautical) An order to the helmsman of a sailing ship to bear away.^[12][16]

Word family

• cheia
• rechear
• recheio

Related words

• pleno
• encher
• enchente
• Latin plēnus
• Galician cheo
• Spanish lleno

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cheio
3. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cheio
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. cheo
5. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 387
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. cheio
7. ^ 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, 204
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 6596
9. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 3, 731
10. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cheio
11. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. cheio
12. ^ a b c d e 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. cheio
13. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. chẽo
14. ^ 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. cheio
15. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 286
16. ^ a b c 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. cheio