coração

Forms

coração m (plural corações)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote coraçõ, coraçon, coraçom and curaçon;^[2][3][4] coração is recorded from the 14th century.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *corātiō, a lengthened form of Latin cor (“heart”), written Old Galician-Portuguese coraçon in the oldest texts.^[3][1][5] Houaiss calls the origin controversial and the reconstruction probable.^[2] The ending has been explained in several ways.^[2][1] Houaiss, Cunha and the DLP see in it an augmentative suffix of reinforcement, and Corominas thinks the word first meant the great heart of the brave man or of the loving woman.^[2][3][5][6] Nascentes recalls Diez's view that the spoken language avoided the Latin monosyllable and replaced it with a fuller form.^[7] Carolina Michaëlis took the word as an augmentative of an already enlarged *coraço, from which she also derived coraçudo and, by a change of vowels, caroço.^[4] Wiktionary reconstructs it instead as *corāceōnem, with the suffixes -āceus and -ō.^[1]

The same formation is Galician corazón, Spanish corazón and the Mozarabic ڧرجون (qurəjūn), found in a poet who died in 1145.^[1][6] The other Romance languages kept the simple word, as French cœur and Italian cuore, and Old Portuguese had cor too, which survives in de cor “by heart”.^[8]

The Latin word goes back to *kord, from Proto-Indo-European *ḱḗr (“heart”), and is related to καρδία (kardía), 𐌷𐌰𐌹𐍂𐍄𐍉 (hairtō) and the English word heart.^[1][9][10]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first record is coraçõ in 1278.^[2] In the 13th-century cantigas the word is already used less for the organ than for the mind and feelings: “will, intention”, “courage” (home de tal coraçom “a man of such courage”), “desire”, and de coraçon “gladly”.^[4][11] The Crónica Troiana has it for the organ, a blow that split the curaçon in two.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Most of the figurative senses are medieval: the cantigas d'amigo use the word for thought and intention, for pleasure, and as a term of endearment, and poer no coraçon meant “to set one's mind on”.^[4] Barbosa (1611) gives it both as the organ and as “spirit, courage”, with the phrase fazer das tripas coração.^[12] Morais (1789) defines the organ and lists “courage”, “love, goodwill” and “intention”.^[13] Figueiredo (1899) adds technical and regional senses: a heart-shaped object, the frog where railway tracks cross, plant and star names, and, in Rio de Janeiro, a veranda.^[14]

The word passed into the Portuguese-based creoles, as kurason in Kabuverdianu and Papiamentu and korson in Guinea-Bissau Creole, and into Konkani.^[1]

Timeline

• 1278 – first record, as coraçõ.^[2]
• 13th century – coraçon, coraçom and curaçon in the cantigas and in prose.^[3][4]
• 14th century – the spelling coração.^[2]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary gives the Latin cor and animus.^[15]
• 1611 – Barbosa records fazer das tripas coração.^[12]
• 1789 – Morais defines the organ and its figurative senses.^[13]
• 1871–1874 – Vieira derives the word from a hypothetical coration.^[16]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the railway sense and the Rio de Janeiro sense “veranda”.^[14]

Meanings

Noun

1. (anatomy) The heart, the hollow muscular organ that pumps the blood.^[2][17][1]
2. The part of the chest where the heart beats; the breast.^[17][18]
3. (figurative) The heart as the seat of the emotions; feelings, affection, love.^[2][17][1]
4. (figurative) Kindness, generosity: uma pessoa de bom coração.^[19][1]
5. courage, spirit.^[18][19]
6. The centre or core of something.^[18][1]
7. (term of endearment) Darling, sweetheart.^[1][19]
8. An object in the shape of a heart.^[19]
9. (railways) The angular piece where two tracks cross, the frog.^[18][14]
10. (Brazil, Rio de Janeiro) A veranda.^[18][19]

Word family

• acoroçoar
• descoroçoar
• descoroçoado
• coraçudo

Related words

• cordial
• coragem
• Latin cor
• Spanish corazón

Usage notes

Fazer das tripas coração (literally “to make a heart out of the guts”) means to summon up courage, to make a great effort.^[12]

Houaiss, Aurélio and the DLP also record a feminine noun coração, “the act of colouring or blushing”, formed from corar with the suffix -ção; it is a separate word, rarely used.^[2][17][5]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. coração
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. coração
4. ^ a b c d e f g 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. coraçon
5. ^ 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. coração
6. ^ a b Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 189
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. coração
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2217
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill, p. s.v. cor
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. cor
11. ^ 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. coraçom
12. ^ a b c Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. coração
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, 328
14. ^ a b c Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 346
15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. coração
16. ^ 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, 507
17. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. coração
18. ^ a b c d e Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. coração
19. ^ a b c d e 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. coração