colo

Forms

colo m (plural colos)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote colo;^[2][3] Houaiss dates the spelling collo to the 14th century.^[2][3] Collo was the dictionary spelling of the 18th and 19th centuries: Bluteau, Morais and Vieira enter colo only as a cross-reference to it.^[4][5][6]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin collum (“neck”), written Old Galician-Portuguese colo in the oldest texts.^[2][7][1]

The same Latin word is Galician colo, Spanish cuello, Catalan coll, Occitan còl, French cou and Italian collo.^[8][9][1]

The origin of the Latin word is uncertain.^[1] Wiktionary suggests Proto-Italic *kʷolsom, from *kʷolso- (“neck”), literally “that on which the head turns”, from *kʷel- (“to turn”), and compares *halsaz (“neck”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 13th century.^[2][7] In the Cantigas de Santa Maria it is the neck, as in m'averedes eno col' a soportar “you will have to bear me on your neck”, and a husband o braço destro no colo deitou “put his right arm round her neck”.^[3] A cantiga of Estevan da Guarda already speaks of carrying o filho d'outro no colo “another man's child in one's arms”, the sense “lap, arms” of today.^[3][10]

Semantic evolution

In the Crónica Geral the word also means the shoulders, as in being carried en colo dos omes “on men's shoulders”.^[3] Bluteau (1712–1728) names three uses: the commonest is the lap, then the place in the arms where a baby is carried, which he explains by the child putting its arm round the carrier's neck, and last the neck itself.^[11] Morais (1789) gives the same three senses.^[12]

The original Caldas Aulete adds the base of the neck in animals, the narrow neck of a bottle or a balloon, a narrow pass between two mountains, and in the Minho the warping of floorboards;^[13] oferecer o colo ao jugo “to offer one's neck to the yoke” meant to submit.^[13] Anatomy uses the word for the narrow part of an organ or a bone, as in colo do útero “cervix” and colo do fémur.^[2][14]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][7][3]
• 14th century – the spelling collo.^[2]
• c. 1430 – the Horto do Esposo (copied 1390–1437) writes both colo and collo.^[15][16]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau heads the word cóllo and gives the senses “lap”, “arms” and “neck”.^[11]
• 1789 – Morais enters the word under collo.^[12]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira enters it under collo and refers colo to it.^[6]

Meanings

Noun

1. The neck, the part of the body joining the head to the trunk; the neck and shoulders.^{[2][17][18][1]}
2. The lap, the space formed by the thighs and the belly of a seated person; the arms in which a child is carried: Levou o bebé ao colo.^{[2][17][14][1]}
3. The upper part of a woman's chest, above the breasts.^[14][19]
4. (anatomy) The narrow opening of some cavities or organs: colo do útero “cervix”.^[2][14][1]
5. (anatomy) The narrow part between the head and the body of certain bones.^[2][14][1]
6. The narrow upper part of a vessel, the gargalo; the mouth of a balloon.^[2][17]
7. (geography) A depression between two heights, wider than a gorge; a mountain pass.^[2][17][1]
8. (botany) The narrow neck of an archegonium.^[2][1]

Word family

• colear
• coleira
• colinho

Related words

• colar
• colete
• Latin collum
• Galician colo
• Spanish cuello

Usage notes

Andar ao colo or andar no colo is said of a child carried in someone's arms, and figuratively trazer alguém ao colo means to protect and pamper someone.^[2][13]

Colo is also a less usual form of cólon, the large intestine, a separate word that came through Latin from Ancient Greek κῶλον (kôlon, “limb”).^[2][14][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 i j k l m n o p Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. colo
3. ^ a b c d e f 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. colo
4. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. colo
5. ^ 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, 287
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, 280
7. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. colo
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
10. ^ 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. colo
11. ^ 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. collo
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, 286
13. ^ 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. colo
14. ^ a b c d e f 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. colo
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. colo
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. collo
17. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. colo
18. ^ 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. colo
19. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. colo