cogombro

Forms

cogombro m (plural cogombros)^[1] Medieval texts spell the word cogõbro, cogonbro and cobrombo.^[2][3] Machado records a variant cobrombro in the 14th century and the modern spelling cogombro from the 16th.^[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cucumerus (“cucumber”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cogonbro and Old Galician-Portuguese cobrombo in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] This is the classical cucumis moved into the second declension, a form that a Latin glossary already records.^[3][5] Houaiss, following Machado, starts from this form, while Wiktionary starts from the accusative of the classical word, and Vieira pointed out in 1873 that the stress of the Romance words falls on the same syllable as in that accusative.^[2][1][6] Nascentes, after Nunes, explains the /b/ as a consonant inserted between /m/ and /r/ once the vowel between them was lost.^[5]

The same Latin word is Spanish cohombro, Italian cocomero and French concombre.^[5] Spanish wrote the word Old Spanish cogonbro as early as 1219 and kept cogombro until the 15th century, when the modern form replaced it.^[7][3]

The Latin word is probably a loan from a language that was not Indo-European; de Vaan suggests an original form like *kuku(m)- and compares Ancient Greek κύκυον (kúkuon).^[8] Wiktionary considers it a wandering word, perhaps from Sumerian or from a Mediterranean substrate.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

In the medieval chronicles the word appears in the story of a lady who has a cucumber filled with blood (cõno cheo de sangue) given to a man as an insult; the Crónica de 1344 tells it with the form cobrombo: vay e toma hũu cobrombo e encheo de sangue “go and take a cucumber and fill it with blood”.^[3] Cunha therefore glosses the old word as a kind of vessel, but the plant is meant: the chronicles use the fruit as a container.^[4][3]

Semantic evolution

The word kept its sense “cucumber” in the dictionaries of the 16th and 17th centuries: Cardoso (1569) and Barbosa (1611) translate it with Latin cucumis and cucumer.^[10][11] Bluteau (1712–1728) still enters it as a garden vegetable but refers the reader to pepino, and Morais (1789) notes that pepinos is what people now say.^[12][13] Since then cogombro has been an old word, defined in the dictionaries as the same as pepino.^{[2][14][15][1]}

According to Lorenzo, crossings with colodra “milking pail” produced the forms colondro, colombro, colodro, calombro and calondro, some of them regional.^[3]

Timeline

• 14th century – the medieval chronicles have cogõbro, cogonbro and cobrombo.^[2][3]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary lists Cogombro, translated cucumis.^[10]
• 1611 – Barbosa translates it cucumer.^[11]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau refers cogombro to pepino and quotes a proverb with it.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais notes that pepinos is now the usual word.^[13]
• 1873 – Vieira marks the word as old.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. (obsolete) cucumber, the fruit of the cucumber plant; the same as pepino.^[2][15][1]

Related words

• pepino
• Latin cucumis
• Spanish cohombro
• Italian cocomero
• French concombre

Usage notes

Bluteau records the proverb Aborreci ao cogombro, e caiu-me no ombro “I loathed the cucumber, and it fell on my shoulder”, spelt Aborreci ao Cogombro, e cahiome no hombro in his dictionary.^[12] Bluteau derived the word from French concombre, a view of its time.^[12]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cogombro
3. ^ 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. cogonbro
4. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cogombro
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. s.v. cogombro
6. ^ 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, 267
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. cohombro
8. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
9. ^ Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. cucumis
10. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cogombro
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cogombro
12. ^ a b c d Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cogombro
13. ^ 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, 283
14. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 311
15. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. cogombro