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correia

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Etymology and origin of the Portuguese word correia

Confidence
Established
Formation
Inherited
First attested
1278 a text spelt coreya More words from the 13th century
Inherited from
Latin corrigia
Ultimate origin
Latin corrigia
Etymology tree
inherited borrowed derived
Latin corrigia
French courroie
Italian correggia
Portuguese correia
Romanian curea
Spanish correa
From the same root
English scourge ← corrigia

Pronunciation

  • Brazil: /koˈʁej.ɐ/, [koˈheɪ̯.ɐ][1]
  • Rio-de-Janeiro: /koˈʁej.ɐ/, [koˈχeɪ̯.ɐ][1]
  • Portugal: /kuˈʁɐj.ɐ/[1]
  • Northern, Portugal: /kuˈʁej.ɐ/[1]

Forms

correia f (plural correias)[1] Houaiss records coreya in 1278, correa in the 13th century and corea in the 14th.[2] Correa is still the spelling of a text of 1513 and corea of a letter of 1522.[3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin corrigia (“shoelace; thong”), written Old Galician-Portuguese correa in the oldest texts.[2][5][1]

The same Latin word is Galician correa, Spanish correa, French courroie and Italian correggia.[6][7][1] Old Castilian and Aragonese also had Old Spanish correya.[7]

Lewis & Short and Wiktionary derive it from corrigō (“to make straight”).[8][1] The OLD finds it apparently unconnected with that verb and compares Celtic words for binding, such as conriug (“I bind together”).[9] De Vaan takes it as the only Latin survivor of an Italo-Celtic family of compound verbs meaning “to stretch, bind”, from Proto-Italic *kom-rig-jo- (“tying together”), related to rigeō.[10] The DHLF adds that, given its technical sense, it may have been borrowed from Gaulish.[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first record is coreya, in a text of 1278 indexed by Cunha.[2] In the Cancioneiro da Ajuda a troubadour complains that he never had from his lady the worth of a strap, valia d'ũa correa, that is, nothing at all; the Crónica Troiana speaks of the straps of a helmet, and the Miragres de Santiago of a town so hungry that its people ate hides and straps.[12][13] From the start the word meant a strip of leather for tying.[12]

Semantic evolution

Besides the leather strip, Houaiss records the shoemaker's strap that holds the shoe to the last, the straps of a horse's harness and the belt that transmits motion in a machine.[2] Figueiredo in 1899 also lists a plant of the family Diosmaceae and a popular game.[14] In the game, one player hides a belt or strap and the others must find it.[15] The DLP adds a figurative sense: a person or body that serves another's interests.[15]

The surname Correia comes from the word.[1] Nascentes notes that it was at first a nickname.[16] Hunsrik, the German of southern Brazil, borrowed the noun as Korrea.[1]

Timeline

  • 1278 – first record, spelt coreya.[2]
  • 13th century – the spelling correa.[2]
  • 14th century – the spelling corea.[2]
  • 1513 – correa in the Livro dos Mártires.[3]
  • 1522 – corea in a private letter.[4]
  • 1899 – Figueiredo records the plant and the popular game.[14]

Meanings

Noun

  1. A strap, a strip of leather or other strong material for tying, fastening or girding: a correia da mochila.[2][17][1]
  2. A shoemaker's strap that holds the shoe on the last; a tirapé.[2]
  3. Each of the straps of a horse's harness (arreio) (usually in the plural).[2][18]
  4. (mechanics) A belt, an endless band that passes motion from one wheel or pulley to another: a correia da ventoinha.[2][17][19][1]
  5. A popular game in which a hidden strap must be found.[2][17][15]
  6. (botany) A plant of the family Diosmaceae, whose leaves are used for tea.[20][15][14]
  7. (figurative) A person or organisation that serves another's interests.[15]
  8. A very thin strip of wood or cane for weaving baskets.[21]

Word family

  • correeiro

Usage notes

Encurtar as correias a alguém “to shorten someone's straps” means to curb their freedom.[2][17][18]

Figueiredo also records a separate correia, a large juicy variety of pear, named after the surname Correia.[14] In Piauí the noun is a slang word for the penis.[22]

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. correia
  3. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. correa
  4. ^ a b CLUL (ed.) (2014), P.S. Post Scriptum: Arquivo Digital de Escrita Quotidiana em Portugal e Espanha na Época Moderna, Lisboa: Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, http://ps.clul.ul.pt, p. s.v. correia
  5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. correia
  6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. s.v. correia
  7. ^ a b García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
  8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. corrigia
  9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. corrigia
  10. ^ 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. corrigia
  11. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. courroie
  12. ^ a b 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. correa
  13. ^ 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. correa
  14. ^ a b c d Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 351
  15. ^ 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. correia
  16. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1952), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 2: Nomes próprios, Rio de Janeiro, p. s.v. correia
  17. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. correia
  18. ^ 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. correia
  19. ^ 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. correia
  20. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. correia
  21. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2489
  22. ^ Navarro, Fred (2004), Dicionário do Nordeste, São Paulo: Estação Liberdade, p. s.v. correia

Related etymologies

Cite this entry

“Correia.” Etymologically, 15 Nov. 2026, etymologically.com/pt/correia. Accessed 16 Nov. 2026.

Last edited on . ·