corpo

Forms

corpo m (plural corpos, metaphonic)^[1] Houaiss records the 13th-century spelling coorpo.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin corpus (“body”), written Old Galician-Portuguese corpo in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] The Latin word was a neuter of the third declension.^[4] Nascentes explains that its nominative and accusative in -s was taken for a plural, since the language had no singulars in -s, and a new singular was made from it, as with lado, peito and tempo.^[5][4] Aurélio sets out the same steps, from the Latin form through the plural to the singular.^[6] Corominas makes the same point for Spanish cuerpo, whose analogical plural is already in the Glosas Silenses beside the Latin neuter plural.^[7]

The same Latin word is Galician corpo, Catalan cos, Occitan còs, French corps and Italian corpo.^[8][1] Portuguese cós "waistband" is a borrowing of the Occitan form, and corpus a learned borrowing of the Latin word: both are doublets of the inherited word.^[8][1]

The Latin noun goes back to Proto-Italic *korpos and Proto-Indo-European *ḱrep- (“body”); its cognates include hrif (“belly”), from *hrefaz.^[9][1] De Vaan reconstructs an ablauting noun *ḱrp-os- and compares the Middle Irish word for "body" and the Indo-Iranian words for "form, appearance".^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to 1082, from Machado's records.^[2] In the cantigas of the Cancioneiro da Ajuda it is the body of a person, as in Pero da Ponte's senhor do corpo delgado "lady of the slender body", and also the person or life itself: perder o corpo "to lose one's life", tolher o corpo "to maim".^[10] Carolina Michaëlis noted that corpo for "the person" was common in the epic and lyric of the whole Peninsula.^[10] The Crónica Troiana uses it both for the living body and for a corpse: fezo soterrar o corpo de patroculus "he had the body of Patroclus buried".^[10]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) records corpinho de molher, a woman's bodice, "also called còs".^[11] Bluteau defines it first as anything made of matter and form, then as the body of a man or animal.^[12] Folqman (1755) has corpo morto "corpse" and corpo da guarda "guardhouse", and Morais (1789) corpo a corpo "hand to hand" and corpo for a body of troops, the main part of an army.^[13][14]

Medieval Latin already used corpus for the nave of a church and the main building of a house, the sense of o corpo do edifício.^[15][6] Later senses are a group of people of one profession (corpo docente, corpo diplomático), the consistency of a liquid or a sound, and in mathematics an algebraic field.^[2] The word passed into the creoles as Guinea-Bissau Creole kurpu and Kristang korpu.^[1]

Timeline

• 1082 – Houaiss's first date, from Machado's records.^[2]
• 13th century – first records in Portuguese, among them the spelling coorpo.^[3][2]
• 1301–1400 – the Trasladação de S. Nicolau, the first CTA text with the word.^[16]
• 1569 – Cardoso glosses it as Latin corpus, with corpusculum.^[17]
• 1611 – Barbosa records corpinho de molher "bodice".^[11]
• 1755 – Folqman lists corpo morto and corpo da guarda.^[13]
• 1789 – Morais records corpo a corpo and the military sense.^[14]
• 1844 – first record of the augmentative corpanzil.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. The body of a person or animal, its physical structure; the head, trunk and limbs together.^[2][6][1]
2. The trunk or torso, without the head and limbs; a person's build or figure: um homem de corpo largo^[2][18]
3. The body as opposed to the soul; the flesh and its needs.^[2][19]
4. A dead body, a corpse.^[2][1]
5. Any portion of matter; a physical body: corpo sólido, corpo celeste.^[2][20]
6. The main or central part of something: of a building, a book, a text or a garment.^[2][6][18]
7. Consistency, thickness of a liquid; fullness of a sound or a wine: Este vinho tem muito corpo.^[2][20]
8. A body of people of one profession or purpose; a corps, an army unit: corpo docente, corpo de bombeiros.^[2][20][1]
9. (printing) The size of a type, measured in points.^[18][1]
10. (mathematics) A field, a ring whose non-zero elements all have a multiplicative inverse.^[2]

Word family

• corpanzil
• corpinho
• encorpar
• anticorpo

Related words

• corporação
• corporal
• corpóreo
• corpus
• cós
• incorporar
• corpete
• Galician corpo
• Spanish cuerpo

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. corpo
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. corpo
4. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 137
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. corpo
6. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. corpo
7. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 276
8. ^ a b Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2253
9. ^ a b 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. corpus
10. ^ 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. corpo
11. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. corpo
12. ^ Bluteau, Raphael (1712–1728), Vocabulario portuguez e latino, 8 vols. + 2 supplement vols., Coimbra / Lisboa (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. corpo
13. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. corpo
14. ^ 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, 332
15. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. corpus
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. corpo
17. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. corpo
18. ^ 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. corpo
19. ^ 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. corpo
20. ^ a b c Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. corpo