cimento

Forms

cimento m (plural cimentos)^[1] Old texts write cimento, çijmento and çemento.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin caementum (“rough stone, rubble”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cimento in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] In Late Latin the word also meant “mortar”: Nascentes notes this sense in the Vulgate, and Niermeyer lists “mortar” and “lime” for Medieval Latin.^[2][5][6] The learned cemento is a doublet of the same Latin word.^[2][1]

The Latin noun is formed from caedō (“to cut, hew”) with the suffix -mentum, so it first meant stone chips cut off in dressing.^[2][7][1] Figueiredo explained it as a contraction of *caedimentum.^[8]

The same Latin word gave Galician cimento, Spanish cimiento (“foundation”), Catalan ciment, French ciment and Italian cimento (“test, risk”), beside the learned cemento.^{[9][5][10][1]} Nascentes explains the ⟨i⟩ of the first syllable, where Latin had ⟨ae⟩ > ⟨e⟩, either as dissimilation, after Nunes, or as an effect of the preceding ⟨c⟩, after Cornu.^[5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][4] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria builders deitaron os cimentos “laid the foundations”, and the Crónica Geral tells of towers torn down ata os çijmẽtos “down to the foundations”; the chronicle also uses the word figuratively, calling a king the çimento “foundation” of all good things.^[3]

Semantic evolution

Until the 18th century the usual sense was “foundation of a building”: Barbosa (1611) and Pereira (1697) gloss it as alicerce “foundation”, and Bluteau notes that João de Barros uses it so, comparing the Spanish cimiento “foundations” and the French ciment, a kind of mortar.^[11][12][13] Morais (1813) still defines it as rough stone for filling and for foundations, and also as the foundation itself, literal or figurative.^[14]

The sense “binding material for masonry” is the one Vieira gives in 1871–1874, with cimento romano and cimento hydraulico, types of hydraulic lime; the old Caldas Aulete defines it as a paste of lime and a solid matter that binds stones or bricks.^[15][16] This is now the main sense, with the industrial cimento Portland.^[2][17] The figurative “foundation, basis” survives.^[18][19] In Mozambique o cimento is the modern part of a town, built in concrete, as opposed to the outlying neighbourhoods.^[17] Wiktionary records the word in Hunsrik as Siment.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – os cimentos “the foundations” in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[3][4]
• 14th century – çijmẽtos in the Crónica Geral.^[3][2]
• 15th century – the spelling çemento.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso translates it with Latin fundamentum and caementum.^[20]
• 1611 – Barbosa glosses it as alicesse, ou fundamento.^[11]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau compares the French and Spanish words.^[13]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira defines it as mortar and lists cimento romano and cimento hydraulico.^[15]

Meanings

Noun

1. cement: a powder of calcined limestone and clay that, mixed with water, forms a paste which sets hard; used to bind building materials.^[2][17][1]
2. The mortar or paste made with this powder.^[21][1]
3. Any substance used to stick things together; an adhesive.^[21][1]
4. A floor covered with cement.^[17]
5. (dentistry) A binding paste used by dentists.^[17]
6. (geology) The material that binds the grains of a sedimentary rock.^[17][16]
7. (anatomy) A substance between the cells of a tissue.^[19]
8. (figurative) A foundation or basis.^[18][19]
9. (Mozambique) The modern part of a town, built in concrete.^[17]

Word family

• cimentar
• acimentar
• cimento-cola

Related words

• cemento
• Galician cimento
• Spanish cimiento

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k 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. cimento
3. ^ 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. cimento
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cimento
5. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 118
6. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. caementum
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. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 299
9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1467
10. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. caementum
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cimento
12. ^ 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. cimento
13. ^ 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. cimento
14. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 397
15. ^ 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, 231
16. ^ 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. cimento
17. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cimento
18. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cimento
19. ^ a b c Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2088
20. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cimento
21. ^ a b 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. cimento