escuro

Forms

escuro (feminine escura, masculine plural escuros, feminine plural escuras, comparable, comparative mais escuro, superlative o mais escuro or escuríssimo, diminutive escurinho)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin obscūrus (“dark”), by the popular route, written Old Galician-Portuguese escuro, Old Galician-Portuguese scuro and Old Galician-Portuguese oscuro in the old language.^[2][3][1] The learned form of the same Latin word is obscuro.^[2][1]

Nascentes and Aurélio describe the change of the first syllable as a change of prefix.^[4][5] Nascentes lists three explanations of the lost ⟨b⟩: Menéndez Pidal saw the pull of Latin words beginning with ⟨sc-⟩, such as scrībō (“to write”);^[6] Nunes also thought of analogy;^[6] Cornu put it down to the following sibilant.^[6]

The same Latin word is Galician escuro, Spanish oscuro, Occitan escur, French obscur and Italian scuro.^[1][7] Castilian, too, long preferred Old Spanish escuro, the only form in Cervantes's Quixote, and the form with ⟨o-⟩ gained ground under Latin influence in the Golden Age.^[8]

Wiktionary analyses the Latin word as ob- and a *scūrus (“dark”), from Proto-Italic *skoiros and Proto-Indo-European *(s)ḱeh₃i-, comparing Old Irish cíar (“dark”).^[1] De Vaan thinks the first meaning was “darkened, covered”, notes that the division of the word is disputed, and gives his Proto-Indo-European reconstruction with a question mark.^[9]

Earliest recorded meaning

Houaiss and Cunha date the adjective to the 13th century.^[2][3] The Cantigas de Santa Maria speak of a dark night falling (a noit'escura se fez) and of a dark prison (a carcer escura); the Crónica Troiana has a man who could see at night, however dark it was, as at midday, and a storm “ugly, dark and frightful” (fea et escura et pauorosa).^[10]

Semantic evolution

The derivatives escurecer “to darken” (13th century), escuridão, escuridade and escureza (14th century) show the word in full use in the medieval language.^[3] Folqman (1755) has questão muito escura “a very obscure question”.^[11] Morais (1813) records azul escuro “dark blue”, dia escuro “an overcast day”, thoughts that are hard to understand and, figuratively, sad ones.^[12] Figueiredo (1899) adds “of low birth” and “faint, hard to hear or make out”.^[13]

As a noun, escuro is darkness or a dark place, and no escuro is used of people left without knowledge.^[2] In Brazil it is also used of a Black or mixed-race person.^[2][14] In Rio Grande do Sul os escuros was a nickname for 19th-century politicians who always wore black.^[15] The word passed into Saramaccan as sugúu.^[1]

Timeline

• 13th century – first records;^[2][3] escurecer also dates from this century.^[2][3]
• 14th century – escuridão, escuridade and escureza;^[3] scuricimento in the Horto do Esposo.^[3]
• 15th century – the spelling scuro.^[2]
• c. 1430 – the earliest record in the CTA prose corpus, the Horto do Esposo (witness 1390–1437).^[16]
• 1697 – Pereira glosses the noun with Latin tenebrae “darkness”.^[17]
• 1755 – Folqman's questão muito escura.^[11]
• 1813 – Morais records azul escuro and dia escuro.^[12]
• 1899 – Figueiredo calls it an alteration of obscuro.^[13]

Meanings

Adjective

1. dark; with little or no light: Entrou num corredor escuro.^[2][5][1]
2. Of a colour: deep, close to black: verde escuro.^[2][5]
3. Of the sky or the day: overcast.^[18][12]
4. (figurative) Sad, gloomy.^[2]
5. (figurative) Surrounded by suspicion; shady.^[2][19]
6. (figurative) Hard to understand, obscure (obscuro).^[2][20]
7. Hard to hear or make out; faint.^[2][13]
8. (dated) Of humble birth.^[13][19]

Noun

1. darkness; a dark place.^[2][1]
2. (Brazil) A Black or mixed-race person.^[2][14]

Word family

• escurecer
• escurecimento
• escuridão
• escuridade
• escureza
• escurentar

Related words

• obscuro
• Latin obscurus
• Galician escuro
• Spanish oscuro

Usage notes

No escuro, like às escuras, also means “without knowledge, in ignorance”.^[2]

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 h i j k l m n o p q Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. escuro
3. ^ 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. escuro
4. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. escuro
5. ^ a b c Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. escuro
6. ^ a b c Nascentes, Antenor (1955), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, vol. 1: Nomes comuns, Rio de Janeiro (1st ed. 1932, preface by W. Meyer-Lübke), p. 187
7. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. s.v. obscurus
8. ^ Corominas, Joan; Pascual, José A. (1980–1991), Diccionario crítico etimológico castellano e hispánico, 6 vols., Madrid: Gredos, p. 4, 318
9. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
10. ^ 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. escuro
11. ^ a b Folqman, Carlos (1755), Diccionario portuguez, e latino, Lisboa: Régia Officina Silviana (CLP transcription, Universidade de Aveiro), p. s.v. escuro
12. ^ a b c Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 746
13. ^ a b c d Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 542
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. escuro
15. ^ Schlee, Aldyr Garcia (2019), Dicionário da Cultura Pampeana Sul-Rio-Grandense, 2 vols., Pelotas: Fructos do Paiz, p. s.v. escuro
16. ^ Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. escuro
17. ^ 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. escuro
18. ^ Porto Editora (2013), Grande Dicionário da Língua Portuguesa, Porto: Porto Editora, p. 3818
19. ^ 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. escuro
20. ^ Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. escuro