dúzia

Forms

dúzia f (plural dúzias)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote duzea and duçea;^[2][3][4] duzia is recorded from 1351.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *duocina, written Old Galician-Portuguese duzea and Old Galician-Portuguese duçea in the oldest texts.^[2][3][5][1] Houaiss calls the origin obscure: the Late Latin form is a reconstruction, proposed as a blend of duodecima and duodecena, in which the -i- of Latin duodecim (“twelve”) would have played the decisive part.^[2] Wiktionary gives either that form or ducena as the source, both from the Latin numeral.^[1] Nascentes instead starts from a supposed old Old Galician-Portuguese *dozena, like the Spanish word, which would have moved its stress under the influence of doze and then raised its stressed vowel.^[6] The Latin numeral is a compound of duo (“two”) and decem (“ten”).^[7][1]

The neighbouring languages derived their words for “dozen” from the numeral in the same way: Spanish docena, French douzaine and Occitan dotzena; the French word passed into Italian dozzina, German Dutzend and English dozen.^[8]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss's first record is duzea in 1269, from Cunha's index of medieval Portuguese.^[2] Lorenzo's chronology has sex duçeas de pixotas “six dozen hake” in 1289 and vj duzeas de pixotas in 1303: the word was a unit for counting goods, here fish.^[4]

Semantic evolution

The meaning has stayed “a set of twelve things of the same kind” since the 13th century.^[2][3] Morais (1813) already records das dúzias “of little worth”, a phrase still used for a mediocre doctor or poet.^[9][5] Other phrases are meia dúzia “half a dozen; a few” and às dúzias “in great numbers”, and the dúzia de frade “friar's dozen” or dúzia de treze is thirteen sold for the price of twelve.^[2][10] Figueiredo (1899) adds a familiar plural, dúzias “a quantity”.^[11] In Brazil a dúzia can also be a hand of bananas cut from the bunch.^[12]

Timeline

• 1269 – first record, spelt duzea.^[2]
• 1289 – sex duçeas de pixotas in a Galician-Portuguese document.^[4]
• 1303 – vj duzeas de pixotas, and duzea for “a dozen”.^[4]
• 1351 – duas duzias and a duzia.^[4]
• 1503 – duzia in a private letter.^[13]
• 1813 – Morais records coisa das dúzias “a cheap thing”.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A dozen, a set of twelve things of the same kind: uma dúzia de pães.^[2][5][1]
2. (informal) About twelve; a small number: Só apareceu uma dúzia de pessoas.^[2][10]

Related words

• doze

Usage notes

Set phrases: meia dúzia “six; a few”, às dúzias “in large numbers”, das dúzias “second-rate”, and dúzia de frade or dúzia de treze “a baker's dozen”.^[2][5][14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. dúzia
3. ^ a b c d Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. dúzia
4. ^ a b c d e f 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. duçea
5. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. dúzia
6. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. dúzia
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
8. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter
9. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 645
10. ^ 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. dúzia
11. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. dúzia
12. ^ 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. dúzia
13. ^ 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. dúzia
14. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 3305