cinza

Forms

cinza f (plural cinzas)^[1] The oldest texts write ciisa and cimsa (13th century), then cinza, ceniza and sinza (14th) and çijnsa (15th).^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *cinisia (“ashes mixed with embers”), a collective noun formed on Latin cinis (“ashes”); the oldest Portuguese form is Old Galician-Portuguese cĩisa.^[2][3][4][1] Houaiss presents the Vulgar Latin noun as taking the place of the classical plural cinera.^[2] Nascentes points out that this form should regularly have given a form with ⟨j⟩, as in igreja and cerveja.^[5]

The same Vulgar Latin word is Galician cinza, Spanish ceniza and Romanian cenușă; it replaced the simple noun in Spanish, Portuguese and some Sardinian, Rhaeto-Romance and Dalmatian dialects.^[4][1] Elsewhere the simple Latin noun survives, as Italian cenere, French cendre and Catalan cendra.^[6][4]

The Latin noun goes back to *kenis and to an old noun for “ashes, dust”, Proto-Indo-European *ken-, also seen in Ancient Greek κόνις (kónis, “dust, ashes”).^[7][1] De Vaan explains the Latin vowel ⟨i⟩ of the first syllable as an assimilation to the second.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the first records, ciisa and cimsa, to the 13th century, with the sense “ashes”.^[2][3] Nascentes quotes an old text of the Alcobaça manuscripts, sua cabeça coberta de cijnza, “his head covered with ashes”.^[5]

Semantic evolution

Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 gives Latin cinis for it, and Barbosa (1611) adds cor de cinza, “ash-coloured”.^[8][9] Bluteau has reduzir a cinzas, “to burn to ashes”, and Folqman lists Quarta feira de cinza, Ash Wednesday.^[10][11] Morais in 1789 adds the plural cinzas for the remains of the dead.^[12] The figurative senses of grief, penance, ruin and memory grew from these.^[2][13]

The colour adjective “grey” is recorded only in the 20th century; the older adjective is cinzento (1813).^[3] Brazilian Portuguese uses sair cinza for a quarrel breaking out, in Ceará the word names a grey haze, and in Portugal a drizzle.^[2][14] In the Portuguese countryside cinza is also the powdery mildew of the vine.^[15]

Timeline

• 13th century – ciisa and cimsa.^[3][2]
• 14th century – the spellings cinza, ceniza and sinza.^[2]
• 1513 – cinza in the Livro dos Mártires.^[16]
• 1569 – Cardoso enters cinza with Latin cinis.^[8]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists cor de cinza.^[9]
• 1755 – Folqman records Quarta feira de cinza.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais gives the plural for the remains of the dead.^[12]
• 1813 – first record of cinzeiro and cinzento.^[3]
• 20th century – cinza used as an adjective, “grey”.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (feminine) ash, ashes: the powder left when something has burnt completely: a cinza da lareira.^{[2][17][18][1]}
2. (feminine, figurative) What has passed and is gone; the memory of it.^[2][14]
3. (feminine, figurative) grief, mourning, penance.^[2][17][19]
4. (feminine, plural) The ashes of a cremated body; the mortal remains of a person.^[2][14]
5. (feminine, plural, figurative) The ruins of something destroyed.^[2]
6. (feminine, Catholicism) The ashes put on the foreheads of the faithful on Quarta-feira de Cinzas, the first day of Lent (Quaresma).^[2][14]
7. (feminine, Brazil, informal) A quarrel or fight;^[2][14] sair cinza, for a quarrel to break out.^[2][14]
8. (feminine, Ceará) A grey layer of haze.^[2]
9. (feminine, Portugal) A fine drizzle.^[2]
10. (feminine, Portugal, regional) powdery mildew of the vine.^[15]
11. (masculine) The colour grey.^[18][19][1]

Adjective

1. (invariable) Grey, ash-coloured: um casaco cinza.^[2][18][1]

Word family

• acinzentado
• acinzentar
• cinzeiro
• cinzento

Related words

• cinéreo
• Latin cinis
• Galician cinza
• Spanish ceniza

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cinza
3. ^ a b c d e f g Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cinza
4. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 29
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 119
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 1930
7. ^ a b 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. cinza
9. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cinza
10. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cinza
11. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cinza
12. ^ 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, 274
13. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 300
14. ^ a b c d e f Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cinza
15. ^ a b Instituto da Lingua Galega, Tesouro do léxico patrimonial galego e portugués (TLPGP), Santiago de Compostela: Universidade de Santiago de Compostela, https://ilg.usc.gal/tesouro, p. s.v. cinza
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cinza
17. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cinza
18. ^ 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. cinza
19. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2100