cutelo

Forms

cutelo m (plural cutelos)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote cuitelo, coitelo, cuytelo and coytello.^[2][3][4] Houaiss's earliest form is cutello.^[2] Figueiredo (1899) still heads the word cutello, with the double consonant of the etymological spelling.^[5]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin cultellus (“small knife”), written Old Galician-Portuguese cuitelo and Old Galician-Portuguese coitelo in the oldest texts.^[2][3][6][1] The Latin word is a diminutive of culter (“knife; ploughshare”), formed with the suffix -lus.^[2][7][8]

The same Latin word is Galician coitelo, Spanish cuchillo, Catalan coltell, French couteau and Italian coltello, all of them the ordinary word for a knife.^[9][1][10] In French the diminutive likewise took over the general sense, while the simple Latin word survived only as the technical coutre, the blade of a plough.^[11] The DHLF tentatively connects the Latin noun with a root Proto-Indo-European *kel- alternating with *skel-.^[11]

Earliest recorded meaning

The cantigas d'escarnho already use the word for a knife drawn in a quarrel: Airas Perez Vuitoron has Pachequ' enton o cuitelo tirou “then Pacheco drew the knife”.^[4] The Cantigas de Santa Maria have sacou seu cuitelo “he drew his knife” and the spelling coitelo beside cuitelo.^[4][12]

Semantic evolution

In the medieval legal language cutelo paired with baraço “halter”: a senhor de baraço e cutelo was a lord with the power of life and death over the people of his land, and Viterbo explains the phrase with documents dated between 1068 and 1394.^[13][14] Cardoso's dictionary of 1569 renders the word with Latin words for both a sword and a knife, and Folqman in 1755 with a word for a short sword.^[15][16]

Morais (1813) describes a broad semicircular iron used by curriers to cut leather, and records two transferred senses in the plural: the feathers at the tip of a falcon's wing, so called for their shape, and small sails set when the wind is good.^[17] The old Caldas Aulete describes the instrument as the one once used for beheading and now used by butchers and curriers, and adds the large iron knife for kneading clay in brick kilns.^[14] The figurative sense of a violent means of repression appears in Aulete and Houaiss.^[14][2] In northern Portugal the word also names a pruning hook and a tool for splitting firewood or stripping the bark from vines.^[18]

Timeline

• 1154 – Houaiss's earliest date, from Machado, with the form cutello.^[2]
• 13th century – first records in Portuguese, spelt coitello and coytelo.^[3] Houaiss has cuytelo before 1279.^[2]
• 14th century – the spelling coytello.^[2]
• 1513 – cutelo in the Livro dos Mártires.^[19]
• 1569 – Cardoso's Portuguese–Latin dictionary lists Cutelo.^[15]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses it with the Latin word for a knife.^[20]
• 1798 – Viterbo's Elucidário explains senhor de baraço e cutelo.^[13]
• 1813 – Morais records the currier's knife, the falcon's feathers and the sails.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. A cutting instrument with a semicircular blade on a wooden handle, formerly used for beheading.^[2][14][21]
2. A cleaver: a heavy, broad-bladed knife used by butchers to cut meat and bone, and a similar tool of curriers and cooks.^{[2][22][23][1]}
3. A large iron knife used to knead the clay in brick kilns.^[2][22][1]
4. (figurative) A violent means of repression or oppression.^[2][22][21]
5. Each of the steel knife-edges of a beam balance, on which the beam and the pans rest.^[22][21][1]
6. (nautical, in the plural) Small square auxiliary sails set beside the topsails when the wind is favourable.^[23][22][1]
7. (in the plural) The feathers at the tip of a falcon's wing.^[22][1]

Word family

• acutilador
• acutilar
• cutelaria
• cuteleiro
• cutilada

Related words

• cultro
• Latin culter
• Galician coitelo
• Spanish cuchillo

Usage notes

The old phrase senhor de baraço e cutelo named a lord who could have his vassals hanged or beheaded.^[13][22]

Aurélio and Wiktionary also record a Cape Verdean cutelo “hill, height, mountain top”, which Wiktionary takes from kutelo.^[23][1]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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. cutelo
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. cutelo
4. ^ 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. cuitelo
5. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. cutelo
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. cutelo
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. cultellus
8. ^ Lewis, Charlton T.; Short, Charles (1879), A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. s.v. cultellus
9. ^ García de Diego, Vicente (1985), Diccionario etimológico español e hispánico, 2nd ed., Madrid: Espasa-Calpe (1st ed. 1954), p. s.v. cultellus
10. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. coitelo
11. ^ a b Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. couteau
12. ^ 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. coitelo
13. ^ a b c Viterbo, Joaquim de Santa Rosa de (1798–1799), Elucidario das palavras, termos e frases que em Portugal antiguamente se usárão, 2 vols., Lisboa: Simão Thaddeo Ferreira, p. 1, 340
14. ^ a b c d 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. cutelo
15. ^ a b Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cutelo
16. ^ Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. cutelo
17. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 508
18. ^ 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. cutelo
19. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. cutelo
20. ^ 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. cutelo
21. ^ a b c 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. cutelo
22. ^ a b c d e f g 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. cutelo
23. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. cutelo