comadre

Forms

comadre f (plural comadres, masculine compadre, masculine plural compadres)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin commāter (“godmother”), the Christian Latin word for the woman who became a second mother to a child at its baptism.^[2][3][4][1] The Latin word is formed from com- (“together”) and māter (“mother”).^[1][5] Medieval Latin used it for the godmother in relation to the father or the godfather, and for the mother in relation to the godfather.^[1][5] Vieira and Figueiredo analyse the Portuguese word as com and madre.^[6][7] The masculine is compadre.^[1]

The same Latin word is Galician comadre, Spanish comadre, Catalan comare, Old Occitan comaire, French commère and Italian comare.^[8][1] The French word was adapted after its word for “mother”.^[9] Meyer-Lübke derives Romanian cumătră instead from Slavic.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to the 15th century from Cunha's medieval index, with the sense “godmother of a person in relation to that person's parents”.^[2][3] Cunha's own date is the 16th century.^[2][3] A private letter of 1556 already uses it.^[10]

Semantic evolution

The word names a tie made at the font: the godmother and the mother call each other comadre.^[2][11] From there it became a familiar form of address for a friend or a neighbour, recorded by Houaiss in the 15th century, and, with a pejorative turn, “gossiping woman”, much as French commère did.^[2][9] Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcelos's Ulysippo uses senhora comadre as a form of address.^[6] Folqman (1755) adds “midwife”, and Morais (1789) both “midwife” and a vessel of boiling water put between the sheets to warm a bed.^[12][13] Later dictionaries add a flat bedpan for the sick.^[2][14] Houaiss dates two regional senses of Pernambuco, “a cleric's mistress” (1849) and “a goat that suckles a child” (1810).^[2] In north-eastern Brazil comadre is above all the midwife.^[15] In Portugal it can also name the mother of one spouse in relation to the other spouse's parents.^[16][17]

The word passed into Kadiwéu as inigomaadile.^[1]

Timeline

• 15th century – first recorded.^[2]
• 1556 – a private letter uses it.^[10]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders it with Latin commater.^[11]
• 1755 – Folqman adds the sense “midwife”.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais records the bed-warming vessel.^[13]
• 1810 – the Pernambuco sense “goat that suckles a child”.^[2]
• 1849 – the Pernambuco sense “a cleric's mistress”.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. The godmother (madrinha) of a person in relation to that person's parents.^[2][14][1]
2. The mother of a person in relation to that person's godparents.^[2][14][1]
3. (informal) A female friend or companion; a familiar form of address for a woman one knows or a neighbour.^[2][18]
4. (pejorative) A gossiping, meddlesome woman (mexeriqueira).^[2][14][1]
5. (informal) A midwife (parteira).^[2][14][1]
6. A hot-water bottle or similar vessel for warming a bed.^[2][19]
7. A flat bedpan for the bedridden (aparadeira, arrastadeira).^[2][14][1]
8. (Portugal, regional) The mother of one spouse in relation to the parents of the other.^[19][16]
9. (Brazil) A children's game in which the players act out families that visit one another.^[2][14]
10. (in the plural, informal) Haemorrhoids.^[2][20]

Related words

• madre
• madrinha
• compadre
• Latin commāter
• Spanish comadre

Usage notes

Quinta-feira de comadres is the Thursday before Carnival (Entrudo).^[21][18]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o 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. comadre
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. comadre
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. comadre
5. ^ a b Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. commater
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, 292
7. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. comadre
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2082
9. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. commère
10. ^ a b CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. comadre
11. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. comadre
12. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. comadre
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, 288
14. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. comadre
15. ^ Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. comadre
16. ^ 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. comadre
17. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. comadre
18. ^ 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. comadre
19. ^ a b 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. comadre
20. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. 1, s.v. comadre
21. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2232