cunhado

Forms

cunhado m (plural cunhados, feminine cunhada, feminine plural cunhadas)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote cunado, cunnado, coynado and cuñado;^[2][3] cunhado appears in the 14th century.^[2][3]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cognātus (“blood relative”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cunado and Old Galician-Portuguese cunnado in the oldest texts.^[2][4][1] In Latin the word meant a relative by blood, as opposed to affīnis, a relative by marriage; in Late Latin it took the sense of the brother of one's spouse.^[2] Nascentes describes the change as going from a blood relative to a relative by marriage and finally to the brother of one's spouse.^[5] In Medieval Latin the word was used for a wife's brother and for a sister's husband.^[6]

The same Latin word is Galician cuñado, Spanish cuñado, Catalan cunyat, Occitan cunhat, Italian cognato and Romanian cumnat; in Romance its sense is everywhere that of the brother of a spouse.^[7][2] The learned doublet is cognato.^[1]

The Latin adjective is formed from con- (“together”) and nātus (“born”).^[1][8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Latin charters write the word from the 10th century: Houaiss's first date, 938, is the Latin form cognata, and Lorenzo cites a charter of 985 with quod cognatus meus fecit “which my kinsman did”.^[2][3] The first vernacular record in Lorenzo's chronology is a document of 1250: Joanes Fernandez, cunado de P. R. “Joanes Fernandez, brother-in-law of P. R.”.^[3] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have the feminine ta cunnada “your sister-in-law”.^[3]

Semantic evolution

In the 13th and 14th centuries the word could still mean any relative by marriage, though the modern sense was already taking over: the Galician Crónica General calls Ordoño the cunado of Diego González, although Ordoño was the cousin of Diego's wife.^[9] Corominas describes the same narrowing in Spanish.^[10] Pereira (1697) defines cunhado as the husband's brother, and Folqman (1755) as the brother of the husband or of the wife, adding meu cunhado for one's sister's husband.^[11][12]

In Amazonia the word is used among the caboclos as a friendly form of address, “friend, mate”.^[2][13] The word passed into Ambonese Malay as konyadu and into Nheengatu as kunhara.^[1]

Timeline

• 938 – Houaiss's earliest record, the Latin form cognata.^[2]
• 985 – a Latin charter: quod cognatus meus fecit.^[3]
• 1250 – cunado in a vernacular document.^[3][2]
• 1300s – the spellings cunhado, coynado and cuñado.^[2]
• 1400s – first record of cunhadia “relationship between in-laws”.^[4]
• 1525 – cunhado in the Memorial da Infanta Santa Joana.^[14]
• 1697 – Pereira defines it as the husband's brother.^[11]
• 1836 – first record of concunhado.^[4]

Meanings

Noun

1. brother-in-law: the brother of one's spouse, or the husband of one's sister: O meu cunhado vem jantar connosco.^[2][15][1]
2. (Amazonia) A friendly form of address: friend, mate, sir.^[2][13]

Word family

• concunhado
• cunhadia
• cunhadio

Related words

• cognato
• Latin cognātus
• Spanish cuñado

Usage notes

Cunhado is also the past participle of cunhar “to coin, to mint”, used as an adjective “minted, stamped” and recorded from the 14th century; it is a different word from the noun.^[2][16]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i 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. cunhado
3. ^ 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. cunnado
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cunhado
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. cunhado
6. ^ Niermeyer, J. F. (1976), Mediae Latinitatis Lexicon Minus, Leiden: Brill, p. s.v. cognatus
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2029
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. cognatus
9. ^ 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. cunado
10. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 294
11. ^ a b Pereira, Bento (1697), Thesouro da lingoa portuguesa, in the 1697 edition of his Prosodia (1st ed. 1647; CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cunhado
12. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cunhado
13. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cunhado
14. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cunhado
15. ^ 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. cunhado
16. ^ 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. cunhado