companha

Forms

companha f (plural companhas)^[1] Houaiss records the medieval spellings cõpanha and conpaña in the 14th century and cõpãha in the 15th.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *compania, written Old Galician-Portuguese companha in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][4] The Vulgar Latin noun is a collective formed on Late Latin compāniō (“companion, messmate”), made of cum (“with”) and pānis (“bread”).^[2][1] The Late Latin word is held to be a calque of a Germanic military term, Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌷𐌻𐌰𐌹𐌱𐌰 (gahlaiba, “companion”), literally “one who shares the same bread”.^[2][5][6]

The same Latin noun is Galician compaña, Spanish compaña, Catalan companya, Old Occitan companha, Old French compaigne and Italian compagna.^[4][1] Cunha takes companhia from the same Vulgar Latin form through this word, which is already recorded in the 13th century.^[7]

Earliest recorded meaning

The word appears in the 13th-century cantigas with the sense “company”, the people who go along with someone.^[2][8] In the satirical cantigas d'escarnho it also means armed men, a lord's following in war: a cantiga of Alfonso X begins Pero que ei ora mêngua de companha “although I am now short of men”.^[9][8]

Semantic evolution

Nascentes explains the history as a widening and then a narrowing: from a group of people who eat their bread together, to people who go together, and then to a military unit and a ship's crew.^[2][3] Houaiss marks the general sense “group of people who travel together” and the military sense as old.^[2] Bluteau (1712) already calls the word an old one that Camões used for companhia, and gives it as the seamen's term for a ship's crew, quoting Barros.^[10] Vieira (1871) says that the word once had all the senses of companhia but was then used only for a fishermen's association or for the crew of a ship, though people still said it in the other senses.^[11]

In Portugal the word lives on in fishing: the crew of a fishing boat and the association of fishermen who work a net together.^[2][12] In Rio Grande do Sul it is used for companhia in the phrase na companha “in the company of”, shared with the Spanish of the River Plate.^[13]

Timeline

• 13th century – the cantigas d'amigo and d'escarnho use companha for “company” and for armed men.^[9][8]
• 1450 – the Livro das tres vertudes is the first text with the word in the CTA corpus.^[14]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary glosses companha with the Latin turba “crowd”.^[15]
• 1697 – Pereira gives companha as a band of shepherds.^[16]
• 1712 – Bluteau calls it an old word and records the sailors' sense “ship's crew”.^[10]
• 1871 – Vieira limits its use to fishermen's associations and ships' crews.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. (nautical) The crew of a ship, especially of a fishing boat.^[2][12][1]
2. (fishing) An association of fishermen who fish together.^[2][12][17]
3. (archaic) A group of people who go along with someone; companhia, company.^[2][18][1]
4. (archaic, military) A body of soldiers; a company.^[2]

Related words

• pão
• companhia
• companheiro
• acompanhar
• Galician compaña

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. companha
3. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. companha
4. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2092
5. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. compagnon
6. ^ Feist, Sigmund (1939), Vergleichendes Wörterbuch der gotischen Sprache, 3rd ed., Leiden: Brill, p. 117
7. ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. companhia
8. ^ a b c 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. companha
9. ^ a b 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. companha
10. ^ 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. companha
11. ^ 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, 341
12. ^ 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. companha
13. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. companha
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. companha
15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. companha
16. ^ Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. companha
17. ^ 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. companha
18. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. companha