dor

Forms

dor f (plural dores)^[1] The medieval form was door, still written in the 15th century; the modern dor is the usual form from the 16th century, and a learned dolor appears in the 14th.^[2][3][4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin dolor (“pain”), written Old Galician-Portuguese door in the oldest texts.^[3][2][5][1] The Latin /l/ between vowels was lost, leaving two vowels side by side in the old form, which later merged into one.^[2][4] The Latin noun was masculine, but the Portuguese word is feminine, as the old form always was in the medieval texts.^[5][4]

The same Latin word is Galician dor, Spanish dolor, Catalan dolor, French douleur, Italian dolore and Romanian duroare.^[6][1]

The Latin noun is formed from the verb doleō (“to hurt, to feel pain”) with the suffix -or; the verb gave Portuguese doer.^[7][3][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The Cantigas de Santa Maria praise the Virgin as the lady en toller coitas e doores “in taking away sorrows and pains”, and speak of coyta de door “the anguish of pain”.^[4] In the Galician Miragres de Santiago door is also an illness: door de fryura is a fever with chills and door da pedra the stone.^[4]

Semantic evolution

Physical and mental pain were both in the word from the start, and Viterbo's Elucidário records the old sense “illness, ailment”.^[4][8] Fernão Lopes still writes a nossa door e tristeza in his chronicle of King Pedro.^[4] The plural dores came to mean the pains of childbirth, and the Church honours the seven Sorrows of the Virgin, as in Nossa Senhora das Dores.^[3][9] The word also took the senses “pity, compassion” and “remorse”, as in a dor dos pecados.^[3][10] Figueiredo's dictionary of 1899 records dor de cotovelo “elbow pain” as a popular name for jealousy.^[11]

The word passed into Kabuverdianu as dór.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – door in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[4][2][3]
• 14th century – the learned spelling dolor, and dolorido.^[2]
• 1496 – dor in the História de mui nobre Vespasiano.^[12]
• 16th century – dor becomes the usual form;^[2][4] doloroso and dorido are first recorded.^[2][4]
• 1569 – Cardoso renders Dor by Latin dolor.^[13]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists dor da cabeça.^[14]
• 1899 – Figueiredo records dor de cotovelo for jealousy.^[11]

Meanings

Noun

1. pain, an unpleasant bodily sensation caused by injury or disease: uma dor nas costas.^[3][15][1]
2. Mental suffering; grief, sorrow, distress.^[3][16][1]
3. remorse, regret for what one has done.^[3][10]
4. Pity, compassion; dó.^[3][15]
5. (in the plural) The pains of labour in childbirth.^[3][17]
6. (Catholicism, in the plural) The seven Sorrows of the Virgin Mary.^[3][9]

Related words

• doer
• dorido
• dolorido
• doloroso
• indolor
• Latin dolor
• Galician dor

Usage notes

Dor de cabeça is a headache and, figuratively, a worry;^[17][10] dor de cotovelo is jealousy;^[17][10] tomar as dores de alguém means to take someone's side when they are offended.^[17][10]

Houaiss, Aurélio and the original Caldas Aulete also record a separate masculine noun dor, the midday prayer of the Parsis, of obscure origin for Houaiss;^[3][15][18] Corriente derives it from Arabic (ṣalātu ẓ-)ẓuhr “the noon prayer” and notes that it is found only in Morais.^[3][15][18]

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 Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. dor
3. ^ 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. dor
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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. door
5. ^ a b Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. dor
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 2724
7. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. dolor
8. ^ 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, 384
9. ^ 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. dor
10. ^ a b c d e 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. dor
11. ^ a b Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 462
12. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. dor
13. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. dor
14. ^ Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. dor
15. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. dor
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. dor
17. ^ a b c d Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 3268
18. ^ a b Corriente, Federico (1999), Diccionario de arabismos y voces afines en iberorromance, Madrid: Gredos, p. 302