devesa

Forms

devesa f (plural devesas)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote deuesa.^[2] Houaiss has devessa in 1365 and devesa in 1391.^[3] A private letter of 1723 or earlier has diveza, and Deveza appears in one of 1816.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Late Latin dēfēnsa (“defended (land)”), short for a phrase with terra (“land”).^[1] The Latin word is the noun use of the feminine of dēfēnsus (“defended, protected”), the past participle of dēfendō (“to protect, ward off”).^[3][1][5] In the Middle Ages the Latin noun also meant “prohibition”, and such land was usually fenced off and closed to outside grazing.^[6][7] Houaiss counts it the popular outcome of the Latin word, beside the semi-learned defesa.^[3]

The same Latin word is Galician devesa, Spanish dehesa, Catalan devesa and Occitan devesa.^[6][1] Corominas notes that the Latin /f/ was voiced between vowels in these words although it began a word after the prefix; the Spanish word is recorded as dejesa in 924.^[6]

Earliest recorded meaning

A Latin charter of 922 already has the Romance word in pumares uineis sautis uel deuesis “orchards, vineyards, chestnut groves or devesas”.^[2] The Miragres de Santiago has et sayan dos montes et das deuesas “and they came out of the hills and the devesas”, and notarial books of Noia from 1412 use the word for a fenced wood next to farmland.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Barbosa (1611) renders devesa with Latin silva “wood” and lists devesinha “small wood”, devesal “wooded place” and the distinction between a devesa that is regularly cut and one that is not.^[8] Figueiredo (1899) records an avenue of trees bounding a property, an enclosed wood, a walled farm, a chestnut grove and a pear grown in the Minho and the Douro.^[9] The old Caldas Aulete marks the chestnut grove as a word of Beira.^[10] In Trás-os-Montes a devesa is a place with many oaks.^[11] The word is also a place name, which became a surname.^[12]

Timeline

• 922 – a Latin charter has the plural deuesis.^[2]
• 961 – Houaiss's earliest date, from Machado.^[3]
• 1365 – devessa, and devesa in 1391.^[3]
• 1412 – deuesa in a notarial book of Noia.^[2]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists Devesa, devesinha and devesal.^[8]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records the pear variety of the Minho and the Douro.^[9]

Meanings

Noun

1. A line of trees, an avenue (alameda), bounding a piece of land.^[3][13][14]
2. A wood or grove on fenced or walled land.^{[3][13][10][1]}
3. A fertile field on a riverbank.^[3][14][15]
4. (Portugal) Land enclosed by fences or walls; a tapada, coutada or quinta.^[3][16]
5. (Beira) A property planted with chestnut trees.^[3][10][1]
6. (agriculture) A variety of pear grown in the Minho and the Douro.^[3][9]

Related words

• defesa
• defensa
• defender
• Galician devesa
• Spanish dehesa

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 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. deuesa
3. ^ 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. devesa
4. ^ 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. devesa
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. devesa
6. ^ a b c Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 2, 435
7. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 155
8. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. devesa
9. ^ a b c Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. s.v. devesa
10. ^ a b c 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. devesa
11. ^ 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. devesa
12. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1952), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 2: Nomes próprios, Rio de Janeiro, p. s.v. devesa
13. ^ a b Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. devesa
14. ^ a b 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. devesa
15. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 3108
16. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. devesa