coroar

Forms

coroar (first-person singular present coroo, first-person singular preterite coroei, past participle coroado)^[1] Houaiss records corõar in the 13th century, coroar in the 14th, and corohar and corooar in the 15th.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin corōnō (“to crown, wreathe”), written Old Galician-Portuguese corõar in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1][4] The spelling without the tilde appears in the 14th century.^[2]

The same Latin verb is Galician coroar, Spanish coronar and Catalan coronar, and formerly Old Spanish comar.^[5] It is also the source of French couronner, through coroner.^[1]

The Latin verb is formed from corōna (“crown, garland”) with the verbal ending -ō.^[6][1] The noun was borrowed from Ancient Greek κορώνη (korṓnē, “anything curved; a crown”), which Wiktionary derives from Proto-Indo-European *(s)ker- (“to turn, bend”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the verb to the 13th century from the index of medieval Portuguese, and Cunha agrees on the century.^[2][3] The medieval Crónica Troiana uses it for crowning a king: o faria coroar por rrey “he would have him crowned king”.^[7]

Semantic evolution

Its derivatives appear soon after: coroamento in the 14th century and coroação in the 15th.^[8][9]

Bluteau records, besides crowning a king or a victor and wreathing with flowers, a midwives' use: the child coroa when its head begins to appear at birth.^[10] Morais (1789) repeats this use and gives literary examples of the transferred sense “to encircle”: the moon crowns the sea with its light.^[11] Later senses are “to top as a crown does”, “to bring to a solemn end” and “to reward”.^[2]

In the countryside of São Paulo it means clearing the ground in a circle round an orange tree, or ringing a coffee bush with stones or branches; in southern Brazil, opening a clearing in the scrub.^[2][12] In Portugal the word names the crowning of a person during the festivals of the Holy Spirit.^[13]

Timeline

• 13th century – first record, as corõar.^[2][3]
• 14th century – the spelling coroar, and the derivative coroamento.^[2][8]
• c. 1430 – coroar in the Horto do Esposo (witness of 1390–1437).^[14]
• 15th century – coroação is first recorded.^[9]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses coroar with the Latin corono.^[15]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau records the midwives' use “to begin to show the head at birth”.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To crown: to put a coroa on someone's head;^[2][16][1] (reflexive) to put on a crown or wreath.^[2][16][1]
2. To proclaim or make someone king or pope in a coronation.^[2][17][1]
3. To ring or encircle.^[2][18]
4. To top something as a crown does;^[2][19] (architecture) to finish a building or an opening with a coroamento.^[2][19]
5. To bring to a fitting or solemn end.^[2][16]
6. To reward a person or an effort;^[2][20] (reflexive) to be rewarded.^[2][20]
7. (reflexive, figurative) To become full: the sky coroa-se with stars.^[2]
8. To fulfil a wish or a hope completely.^[2][16]
9. (São Paulo) To clear the ground round an orange tree; to ring a coffee bush with stones or branches.^[2]
10. (southern Brazil) To open a clearing in the mato.^[12]

Word family

• coroação
• coroamento
• coroado

Related words

• coroa
• Latin corōnō
• Spanish coronar

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l 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 t Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. coroar
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. coroar
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. coroar
5. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. coronare
6. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. corōnō
7. ^ 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. coroar
8. ^ a b Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. coroa
9. ^ a b Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. coroação
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. coroar
11. ^ 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, 332
12. ^ a b Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. 1, s.v. coroar
13. ^ 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. coroar
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. coroar
15. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. coroar
16. ^ a b c d Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. coroar
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. coroar
18. ^ 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. coroar
19. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. coroar
20. ^ a b Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2478