cu

Forms

cu m (plural cus)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote cuu and cũu.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cūlus (“the rump, anus”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cuu in the oldest texts.^[3][4][5][1]

The same Latin word is Galician cu, Spanish culo, Catalan cul, Occitan cul, French cul, Italian culo and Romanian cur.^[6][7][1] The Latin word is a popular one, found in satire, graffiti and the Priapea;^[8] de Vaan traces it to Proto-Italic *kūlo- and Proto-Indo-European *kuH-lo- (“backside, rear”), with cognates in cúl (“back”) and Welsh cil (“corner”).^[9][10] De Vaan rejects the older link to a root *(s)kewH- (“to cover”).^[9][1] Lewis & Short and Figueiredo compared it with Ancient Greek κοῖλος (koîlos, “hollow”).^[11][12]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the word to the 14th century.^[3][4] It is common in the satirical cantigas d'escarnho e de mal dizer: Estevan da Guarda has atá o cuu “right up to the backside”, and Lopo Liaz uses dar do cuu for clumsy wriggling of the rump.^[13]

Semantic evolution

The word has kept both its Latin senses, the anus and, by extension, the buttocks.^[3][14] Houaiss labels the sense “anus” for Brazil and Portugal, and the sense “buttocks” for Portugal only.^[3] Bluteau in 1712 called it an uncivil and indecent synonym of the seat, and Caldas Aulete quotes it from Fernão Lopes's Crónica de D. João I.^[15][16]

Transferred senses name the bottom of things: the end of a needle opposite the point, and in old nautical use the lower end of a block or deadeye.^[3][14] In Brazil it is also a crude word for a tiresome or worthless person or thing.^[1][17] Derivatives include cueiro “baby's swaddling cloth”, recorded in the 15th century, and cueca “underpants”, recorded in 1813.^[4]

Timeline

• 14th century – first records, spelt cuu.^[3][4]
• 15th century – first record of cueiro.^[4]
• 1513 – the Livro dos Mártires uses the word.^[18]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders it with Latin podex and anus.^[19]
• 1712 – Bluteau marks the word as uncivil.^[15]
• 1813 – first record of cueca.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. (vulgar) The anus.^[3][14][1]
2. (vulgar) (chiefly Portugal) The buttocks, the backside; bunda.^[3][14][1]
3. The end of a needle (agulha) opposite the point, where the eye is.^[3][14]
4. (nautical, obsolete) The lower end of a block or deadeye, opposite its head.^[3][14]
5. (Brazil, vulgar) Something or someone tiresome, bad or worthless.^[1][17]

Word family

• cueca
• cueiro
• cu-doce
• cuzão

Related words

• culote
• kuduro
• Latin cūlus
• Galician cu
• Spanish culo

Usage notes

The word is taboo in both Brazil and Portugal, and most of its many set phrases are coarse: ficar com o cu na mão “to be terrified” is Brazilian, cair de cu “to be astonished” is European.^[14][16] Cu de Judas is a remote place.^[20][1] The chemical symbol of copper is the same word with a capital.^[3][21]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. cuu
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. cu
4. ^ a b c d e f Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cu
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. cu
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 3384
7. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954)
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. cul
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
10. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
11. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
12. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. cu
13. ^ 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. cuu
14. ^ a b c d e f g Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cu
15. ^ 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. cu
16. ^ 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. cu
17. ^ a b Wikcionário (Portuguese Wiktionary), pt.wiktionary.org, p. s.v. cu
18. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cu
19. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cu
20. ^ 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. cu
21. ^ 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. cu