Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word conto
conto1 tale; count
Etymology tree of conto1
From the same root · conto1
Pronunciation
Forms
conto m (plural contos)[1]
Etymology
The word for the tale is inherited from Latin computus (“calculation, reckoning”), written Old Galician-Portuguese conto in the oldest texts.[2][1][3] Houaiss explains that the Latin verb behind it, “to reckon, count”, took in popular speech the sense “to list the details of an event, to relate”, and the noun followed it; the verb itself is formed on putō (“to reckon, think”).[2] The DLP, Nascentes and Cunha take the narrative noun instead as a back-formation from the verb contar.[4][5][6] The learned cômputo is its doublet.[1][2]
The same Latin noun is Galician conto, Spanish cuento (both “count” and “tale”), Catalan compte and Italian conto.[3][7] French separated compte “count” from conte “tale”, the latter from the verb or from the Latin noun.[1]
Earliest recorded meaning
Both senses are in the Cantigas de Santa Maria: segund' este conto diz “as this tale says” (CSM 135) and eno conto dos çopos ficava “he remained among the number of the lame” (CSM 37).[8] The Crónica Troiana also has both: segundo o conto contara adeant “as the story will tell further on”, and os caualeyros que y morrian non aujan ja conto “the knights who died there were past counting”.[8]
Semantic evolution
The sense “number” gave the old conto “a million”: Bluteau explains that conto is said of réis and milhão of cruzados and other things, the two meaning the same, and that old books say conto de ouro.[9] Houaiss calls conto the forerunner of milhão, and notes that the phrase um conto de réis followed the many cuts of zeros of Portuguese and Brazilian inflation; in Portugal conto was a thousand escudos, and in Brazil it is now only a vestige.[2] Morais (1789) records the Casa dos contos, the old name of the royal treasury.[10] Regional senses are “twenty dozen (eggs)”, a measure of salt, and twenty skeins of linen.[2][11]
The narrative sense was the first one the dictionaries gave: Cardoso (1569) and Barbosa (1611) translate Conto with historia, and Folqman (1755) with fabula, “an invented story”.[12][13][14] From it came the plural contos “tricks, lies” and, in literature, the short story as a genre.[2][11] Wiktionary lists borrowings into English and Mwani.[1]
Timeline
- 13th century – conto in the Cantigas de Santa Maria, in the senses “tale” and “number”.[2][8]
- c. 1400 – the Flos Sanctorum fragment of Santiago de Compostela, the first CTA text with the word.[15]
- late 15th century – conto is the antecedent of milhão “million”.[2]
- 1569 – Cardoso glosses Conto as “historia”.[12]
- 1697 – Pereira glosses it as “numero”.[16]
- 1712–1728 – Bluteau explains conto as a million réis.[9]
- 1789 – Morais records the Casa dos contos.[10]
Meanings
Noun
- (literature) A short story: a brief narrative with a single plot, few characters and limited time and place: os contos de Machado de Assis.[2][1]
- A tale, a story told aloud or written, especially of legendary or marvellous events.[4][1]
- A deliberately false story, a lie or trick;[2][17] (chiefly plural) gossip, intrigue.[2][17]
- A count, number, quantity;[2][17] sem conto “without number”.[2][17]
- (obsolete) A million, especially a million réis: um conto de réis.[2][1]
- (Portugal, dated) A thousand escudos;[2][1] (Portugal) five euros.[2][1]
- (regional, Portugal) Twenty dozen (of eggs); twenty skeins of linen.[2][4]
- (Brazil, slang) Money, a unit of currency: Isso custou vinte conto.[1][18]
Word family
- contista
- conto de fadas
- conto do vigário
conto2 butt of a spear
Etymology tree of conto2
From the same root · conto2
Pronunciation
Forms
conto m (plural contos)[1]
Etymology
The word for the butt of a spear is borrowed from Latin contus (“pole, pike”), by the learned route.[19][1][5] The Latin word is from Ancient Greek κοντός (kontós, “pole”).[19][2][1] The Greek noun is built on the o-grade of the root of κεντέω (kentéō, “to prick, goad”).[1][20]
Spanish cuento “ferrule of a lance or staff” has the same source.[21][22] Corominas and Pascual also cite the Portuguese phrase for “the butt of the lance” from the Miragres de Santiago.[21][22]
Semantic evolution
Morais (1789) defines it as the lower end of a lance or staff and cites Camões.[10] Figueiredo (1899) adds the globular end of a cannon.[11]
Timeline
- 16th century – first record.[19]
- 1789 – Morais, with a citation of Camões.[10]
- 1899 – Figueiredo records the sense “knob at the end of a cannon”.[11]
Meanings
Noun
- The lower end of the shaft of a lance.[19][2][1]
- The iron ferrule at the end of a staff or pole.[2][17]
- A handle or hilt (cabo): o conto da espada.[2]
- (military) The globular knob at the rear end of a cannon.[2][4]
Word family
- conteira
Related words
Usage notes
The proverb quem conta um conto acrescenta um ponto “whoever tells a tale adds a stitch” means that stories grow in the telling.[1]
Houaiss has a further noun conto, a sack-shaped fishing net, of obscure origin; the DLP describes it as a regional net fixed to an iron ring on a pole, used for shad and lamprey, and puts it under Latin contus.[2][4]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. conto
- ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2109
- ^ 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. conto
- ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. conto
- ^ Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. contar
- ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. computus
- ^ a b c 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. conto
- ^ 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. conto
- ^ a b c d 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, 320
- ^ a b c d Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 338
- ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. conto
- ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. conto
- ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. conto
- ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. conto
- ^ 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. conto
- ^ a b c d e Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. conto
- ^ 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. conto
- ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. conto
- ^ Beekes, Robert S. P. (2010), Etymological Dictionary of Greek, with the assistance of Lucien van Beek, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 10, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. κοντός
- ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 272
- ^ a b 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. cuento
Related etymologies
Cite this entry
“Conto.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/conto. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.
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