escama

Forms

escama f (plural escamas)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin squāma (“scale”), written Old Galician-Portuguese escama in the oldest texts.^[2][3][4][1] Besides the scale of a fish or snake, the Latin word could mean mail of metal, a cataract of the eye, a crust, and roughness of style.^[2][5]

The same Latin word is Galician escama, Spanish escama, Catalan escama, Italian squama and Romanian scamă (“fibre”).^[6][1] Corominas dates the Spanish to 1335.^[7] French squame is a learned remaking of esquame, after the Latin.^[8]

The origin of the Latin word is unclear: Wiktionary connects it, probably, with squālus (“filthy”), or perhaps with *(s)kewH- (“to cover”).^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss dates the word to the 14th century from the medieval index.^[2] The Crónica Troiana speaks of a pel da serpente ... cõ suas escamas “the skin of the serpent with its scales”.^[9] Cunha dates the word only to the 16th century.^[3]

Semantic evolution

The word keeps the Latin sense, the scale of fish and reptiles, and widened it to anything of that shape: Silva Bastos (1912) adds the flakes of skin that come off in some illnesses and an ornament in the form of scales,^[10] and the modern dictionaries the scales of a butterfly's wings and the small dry leaves of plants.^[11][12] The verb escamar and the participle escamado are first recorded by Morais in 1813.^[3] Barbosa's dictionary of 1611 already has escamar in the sense “to take the scales off”.^[13]

Timeline

• 14th century – first record, according to Houaiss's medieval index.^[2]
• 16th century – Cunha's first date for the word and for escamoso.^[3]
• 1569 – Cardoso's dictionary renders it by Latin desquamma.^[14]
• 1611 – Barbosa lists escama, escama pequena and escamar.^[13]
• 1813 – Morais records escamar and escamado.^[3]

Meanings

Noun

1. (zoology) Each of the thin plates that cover the body of fishes and of many reptiles, a scale.^[2][12][1]
2. (medicine) A flake of dead skin that comes off the epidermis in certain diseases.^[12][15]
3. Anything shaped like a scale, such as an ornament: um vestido bordado de escamas douradas.^[12][15]
4. (botany) A small, dry, leaf-like organ found on various parts of plants.^[12][16]
5. (entomology) Each of the flattened hairs on the wings of butterflies and moths.^[11]

Word family

• escamar
• escamado
• escamoso
• escamífero
• escamígero

Related words

• escâmula
• Latin squāma
• Spanish escama

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 Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. escama
3. ^ a b c d e Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. escama
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. escama
5. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. squāma
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8199
7. ^ Corominas, Joan (1973), Breve diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana, 3rd ed., Madrid: Gredos, p. s.v. escama
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. squame
9. ^ 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. escama
10. ^ Silva Bastos, José Timóteo da (1912), Diccionario etymologico, prosodico e orthographico da lingua portugueza, Lisboa: Parceria António Maria Pereira, p. s.v. escama
11. ^ a b 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. escama
12. ^ a b c d e Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. escama
13. ^ a b Barbosa, Agostinho (1611), Dictionarium lusitanicolatinum, Braga: Fructuoso Lourenço de Basto (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. escama
14. ^ Cardoso, Jerónimo (1569–1570), Dictionarium ex lusitanico in latinum sermonem, Lisboa: João Álvares (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. escama
15. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. escama
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. escama