descalço

Forms

descalço (feminine descalça, masculine plural descalços, feminine plural descalças)^[1] Houaiss records the spelling descalsso in the 15th century.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Vulgar Latin *discalceus (“barefoot”), written Old Galician-Portuguese descalço in the oldest texts.^[2][3][1] Houaiss and the DLP take the Vulgar Latin adjective as a shortening of Latin discalceātus, the past participle of discalceō (“to take off the shoes”);^[2][4][1] Wiktionary allows also a direct formation from dis- and calceus (“shoe”), itself from calx (“heel”).^[2][4][1] Older dictionaries derived the adjective instead from the verb descalçar, as a shortened participle: Vieira, Figueiredo and the first edition of Aurélio.^[5][6][7] The verb is itself a 13th-century word, from the Late Latin verb.^[8][3]

The same Vulgar Latin word is Galician descalzo, Spanish descalzo, Catalan descalç, Occitan descauç, French déchaux, Italian scalzo and Romanian desculț.^[1][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of clerigos, monges e frades descalços “clerics, monks and barefoot friars”, and a cantiga of Pero Mendiz da Fonseca tells of a man who arrived descalço, gran madurgada “barefoot, at early dawn”.^[9][10] The Crónica of 1344 has a man who fled em panos de lynho e descalço “in his linen undergarments and barefoot”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

From the first records the word is used of friars as well as of lay people.^[9] Bluteau (1712–1728) adds a figurative sense, “unprepared”, quoting Rodrigues Lobo: Nunca para huma murmuraçaõ vos achey descalço “I never found you unready for gossip”.^[11] Morais repeats it, and the sense survives in informal use (to be caught descalço), where the word also means “out of money”.^[12][13][2]

Of roads and streets it means “unpaved”, and in horse racing it describes a horse running without shoes.^[2][14] The discalced orders, such as the Carmelitas Descalços, take their name from the sandals their members wear.^[2][13]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records, in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2][3][9]
• 1344 – descalço and descalços in the Crónica.^[9]
• 15th century – the spelling descalsso.^[2]
• 1513 – descalço in the Livro dos Mártires.^[15]
• 1697 – Pereira translates it as Latin excalceatus.^[16]
• 1712–1728 – Bluteau records the figurative sense “unprepared”.^[11]
• 1871 – Vieira derives the adjective from descalçar.^[5]

Meanings

Adjective

1. barefoot: without shoes, or wearing only socks or stockings.^[2][14][1]
2. (religion) discalced: of a religious order whose members wear sandals.^[2][1]
3. Of a road or street: not paved.^[2][17]
4. (informal) Unprepared; caught out; short of money.^[2][4]
5. (horse racing) Of a horse: running without horseshoes.^[2][14]

Related words

• descalçar
• calçar
• calçado
• Spanish descalzo

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. descalço
3. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. descalço
4. ^ 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. descalço
5. ^ a b Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 2, 818
6. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 405
7. ^ Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda (1975), Novo dicionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., Rio de Janeiro: Nova Fronteira, p. 467
8. ^ Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. descalçar
9. ^ 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. descalço
10. ^ 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. descalço
11. ^ 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. descalço
12. ^ Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 555
13. ^ 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. descalço
14. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. descalço
15. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. descalço
16. ^ 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. descalço
17. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 2868