cobra

Forms

cobra f (plural cobras)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote coobra, cohobra and coovra;^[2][3][4][5] cobra is recorded from the 15th century.^[2][3][4][5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *colobra, written Old Galician-Portuguese coobra in the oldest texts.^[3][1][6] This is an altered form of Latin colubra (“snake”), the feminine beside coluber; the Appendix Probi already condemns colober.^[2][7][8] After the loss of the intervocalic /l/ the two vowels that met merged into one.^[9][7]

The same Latin word is Galician cobra, Spanish culebra, Catalan colobra, French couleuvre and Sardinian colora.^[10][1][11]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain: Walde–Hofmann and Pokorny proposed Proto-Indo-European *(s)kelo-dʰro- (“winding itself”), and Ernout and Meillet a loan from Ancient Greek χέλυδρος (khéludros, “amphibious serpent”), which de Vaan thinks very unlikely; he suggests instead a link with colus (“distaff”), a snake being the “distaff-like” animal that winds round itself.^[12]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria tell how the Virgin of El Puerto cured a woman of a snake (ũa coobra) she carried in her belly, and speak of the bite de coovr' ou d'aranna “of snake or spider”.^[4][5] In the Crónica Troiana a snake puts its head into a nest, takes a chick and eats it.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Cardoso (1569) and Barbosa (1611) render it with Latin anguis, coluber and serpens;^[13][14] Barbosa has the diminutive cobrinha.^[13][14] Morais (1789) defines it as a scaly reptile, venomous, of many species, and in farming as the rope with which mares or cattle are tied together.^[15] Aulete adds the row of cows so tied on the threshing floor, and the figurative “false, cunning person”.^[16] Figueiredo records a snake-shaped cake of the Alentejo, and in Trás-os-Montes it is the coil of a still.^[17][18]

In Brazil it means an expert, someone very good at what he does, and in the jogo do bicho the ninth group.^[19][6] Zoologists use it strictly for the hooded snakes of Asia, the genus Naja.^[20][1] These were the cobra de capelo “hooded snake” of the Portuguese in India, and Dalgado's glossary quotes the name from 1578.^[21] English took cobra capello in the 1670s and shortened it to cobra by 1802;^[22][23] Spanish borrowed cobra from Portuguese in the 20th century.^[22][23] The creoles have Kabuverdianu kóbra, Kristang kobra and Sãotomense koblo.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – coobra and coovra in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3][5]
• c. 1430 – cobra in the Horto do Esposo.^[24]
• 16th century – first record of cobrelo.^[3]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders cobra with Latin anguis.^[13]
• 1578 – first quotation of cobra de capelo in Dalgado's glossary.^[21]
• 1670s – English cobra capello.^[22]
• 1789 – Morais records the farming sense “rope for tying animals”.^[15]
• 1802 – English cobra.^[22]

Meanings

Noun

1. A snake, any reptile of the suborder Serpentes; strictly, a cobra of the genus Naja.^[2][19][1]
2. An object shaped like a snake.^[2][19]
3. (figurative) A spiteful, false or cunning person; a viper.^[2][16][1]
4. (Portugal) A rope with loops and knots for tying cattle together; the row of cattle so tied.^[16][1]
5. (Brazil) In the jogo do bicho, the ninth group.^[19]
6. (Brazil, informal) An expert, someone very good at his trade: Ele é cobra em matemática.^[19][6][1]

Adjective

1. (Brazil, informal) Very skilled, expert.^[19][1]

Word family

• cobrinha
• cobrelo
• cobreiro
• cobrejar
• cobra-capelo
• cobra-coral
• cobra-d'água
• cobra-de-capelo
• cobra-de-vidro
• cobra-real

Related words

• ofídico
• serpente
• Latin colubra
• Spanish culebra
• Galician cobra

Usage notes

Houaiss has a separate feminine noun cobra “the act of collecting, especially game”, a back-formation from cobrar.^[2] Old Galician-Portuguese cobra “stanza” is another word: the troubadours made cobras e son “stanzas and tune”; it is from Latin cōpula (“bond”) through Old Occitan cobla, and later dictionaries treat it as an old form of copla.^{[25][26][27][19][28]}

Wiktionary records many phrases with the word, such as dizer cobras e lagartos and matar a cobra e mostrar o pau.^[1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n 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. cobra
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cobra
4. ^ 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. coobra
5. ^ 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. coovra
6. ^ 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. cobra
7. ^ 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. 123
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 287
9. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. cobra
10. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2060
11. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. colubra
12. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. colubra
13. ^ a b c Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cobra
14. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cobra
15. ^ 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, 280
16. ^ a b c 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. cobra
17. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. cobra
18. ^ 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. cobra
19. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cobra
20. ^ 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. cobra
21. ^ a b Dalgado, Sebastião Rodolfo (1919–1921), Glossário luso-asiático, 2 vols., Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade, p. 1, 287
22. ^ a b c d Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com, p. s.v. cobra
23. ^ a b Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. culebra
24. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cobra
25. ^ 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. cobra
26. ^ 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. cobra
27. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. copula
28. ^ 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, 258