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companhia

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word companhia

Confidence
Established
Formation
Derivation
First attested
1200s spelt compannia More words from the 13th century
Ultimate origin
Vulgar Latin *compania
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Portuguese companha
Portuguese companhia

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /kõ.pɐ̃ˈɲi.ɐ/, [kõ.pɐ̃ˈj̃i.ɐ], /kõ.pɐ̃ˈni.ɐ/[1]
  • Portugal: /kõ.pɐˈɲi.ɐ/[1]

Forms

companhia f (plural companhias)[1] Houaiss records the old spellings compannia (13th century), conpanhiha (1331) and companhia (15th century).[2] Cunha adds companhya from the 15th century.[3] Wiktionary lists compania and the abbreviation cia. as other forms.[1]

Etymology

It is formed from Portuguese companha + -ia, from the older noun meaning “band of people going together; company”.[2][3][4][5] Cunha traces the word through the old form to Vulgar Latin *compania, and Houaiss explains that Vulgar Latin noun as formed on cum (“with”) and pānis (“bread”), parallel to the Late Latin of Gaul compāniō (“companion”), which is itself a calque of Gothic 𐌲𐌰𐌷𐌻𐌰𐌹𐌱𐌰 (gahlaiba, “companion, one who shares bread”).[3][6] Following Nascentes, Houaiss takes the first sense to have been “people who eat their bread together”, widened to “people who go together” and then narrowed to a military band and to the crew of a ship.[6]

The older noun survives as companha, now “crew of a fishing boat” or, in dialects, “group of people”.[1][6] The Romance words of the same family are Galician compaña, Spanish compañía, Catalan companyia, Occitan companhiá and Italian compagnia, and the same word is English company.[1] The Spanish noun is likewise derived from compaña.[7] The DHLF gives two explanations of French compagnie: a derivative of Old French compain with -ie, or a remaking of the older compaigne, the outcome of the Vulgar Latin noun.[8] The REW lists the parallel forms of the Vulgar Latin word, among them the old Portuguese form.[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the noun to the 13th century, from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese, in the spelling compannia.[2] A cantiga asks a woman a quen leixades o voss'escolar / ou vosso filh'e vossa companhia? “to whom do you leave your pupil, or your son and your company?”, where Universo Cantigas glosses the word “company, accompaniment”.[10] In the same period the older companha meant “men at arms”, as in a cantiga d'escarnho of Alfonso X.[11]

Semantic evolution

Cunha sums up the early senses as “the one who or that which accompanies; retinue; dealings, fellowship”.[3] Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 renders the word with Latin turba (“crowd”) and coetus (“assembly”), and Pereira's of 1697 with societas (“partnership”) and sodalitium (“fellowship”).[12][13] Folqman (1755) already has fazer companhia a alguém “to keep someone company” and a military companhia de cem soldados, a company of a hundred soldiers.[14]

The business sense came later: Figueiredo (1899) defines a commercial company formed by shareholders, and modern dictionaries add the theatre, dance and circus company.[15][2][5] The old Caldas Aulete records the popular sense “one's household, family”, still in Houaiss and Michaelis.[16][2][17] In colonial Brazil each local unit of the bandeirantes was a companhia.[2][1]

Timeline

  • 13th century – first record, spelt compannia.[2]
  • 1331 – the spelling conpanhiha.[2]
  • 15th century – the modern spelling companhia.[2][3]
  • after 1450 – companhia in the Livro das tres vertudes, the earliest text with it in the CTA.[18]
  • 1569 – Cardoso glosses it with Latin turba and caetus.[12]
  • 1697 – Pereira glosses it societas, sodalitium.[13]
  • 1755 – Folqman lists fazer companhia and the company of a hundred soldiers.[14]
  • 1871 – Vieira defines a gathering of people for some common purpose, quoting Gil Vicente.[19]
  • 1899 – Figueiredo records the commercial company formed by shareholders.[15]

Meanings

Noun

  1. The fact of being with someone; company, companionship: Agradeço a tua companhia nesta tarde.[2][5][1]
  2. A person, animal or thing that is with someone; a companion: Os livros eram a sua única companhia.[2][5][1]
  3. A group of people gathered together; a retinue.[20][21]
  4. Close dealings with others, social life: andar em más companhias.[20][17]
  5. (popular) One's household, the family at home.[2][17]
  6. An association of people with a common aim, especially a group of performers: companhia de teatro, companhia de dança.[2][22][1]
  7. (business, law) A firm owned by partners or shareholders: companhia de seguros.[2][5][1]
  8. (military) A unit commanded by a captain, below a battalion.[2][22][1]
  9. (Brazil, history) Each local unit of bandeirantes in colonial Brazil.[2][1]

Word family

  • dama de companhia
  • cão de companhia
  • companhia aérea

Usage notes

Fazer companhia means “to keep someone company”, and a dama de companhia is a lady's companion.[2][16] With a capital, the Companhia de Jesus is the Jesuit order.[2]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m 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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. companhia
  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. companhia
  4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. companhia
  5. ^ a b c d e 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. companhia
  6. ^ a b c Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. companha
  7. ^ Real Academia Española; Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2014–), Diccionario de la lengua española, 23rd ed., online version 23.8, https://dle.rae.es, p. s.v. compañía
  8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. compagnie
  9. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2092
  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. companhia
  11. ^ 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
  12. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. companhia
  13. ^ a b 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. companhia
  14. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. companhia
  15. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 321
  16. ^ 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. companhia
  17. ^ a b c 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. companhia
  18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. companhia
  19. ^ 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, 343
  20. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. companhia
  21. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2257
  22. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. companhia
Cite this entry

“Companhia.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/companhia. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·