esplendor

Forms

esplendor m (plural esplendores)^[1] Old Galician-Portuguese wrote esprandor, splandor and esplandor;^[2] esplendor is Houaiss's form of the 15th century.^[3][4][2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Latin splendor (“brightness, brilliance”), written Old Galician-Portuguese esprandor, Old Galician-Portuguese splandor and Old Galician-Portuguese esplandor in the oldest texts.^[3][4][1][2] Nascentes counts it as a semi-learned word.^[5]

The same Latin word is Galician esplendor, Spanish esplendor, Italian splendore and French splendeur; the French word, first written Old French splendur about 1120, is a learned borrowing.^[6][7][8]

The Latin noun is formed from splendeō (“to shine, be bright”) with the suffix -or.^[9] De Vaan derives the verb from *spln̥d-eh₁- (“to be manifest”), whose causative gave Old Irish sluindid (“to express, declare, name”).^[10][1]

Earliest recorded meaning

Two of the Cantigas de Santa Maria of the 13th century have the word: cantiga 295 speaks of crowns “with many rich stones that gave great splendour” (con muitas pedras ricas que grand' esprandor / davan), and cantiga 384 of something that looks like the sky “when it is in its splendours” (quand' é con sas esplandores), where the noun is feminine.^[2][11] Houaiss and Cunha also date the word to the 13th century.^[3][4]

Semantic evolution

The first records already have both the light of precious things and of heaven; the Corte Imperial calls the Virgin “the queen of divine splendour” (a rreynha do splendor devynal).^[2] The spelling esplendor appears in the Horto do Esposo, copied 1390–1437.^[12]

Morais (1813) gives “lustre”, figuratively the lustre of finery and luxury, and esplendor do sangue “nobility of blood”.^[13] Vieira lists pomp, luxury and magnificence.^[14] The DLP adds the high point of a career or of a process, the moment of greatest glory.^[15]

Timeline

• 13th century – esprandor and esplandores in the Cantigas de Santa Maria.^[2]
• c. 1430 – esplendor in the Horto do Esposo.^[12]
• 1697 – Pereira's dictionary renders Esplendor by Latin splendor.^[16]
• 1813 – Morais records esplendor do sangue “nobility of blood”.^[13]
• 1899 – Figueiredo adds the figurative sense “dazzlement”.^[17]

Meanings

Noun

1. Intense brightness or light; brilliance, fulgor, resplendor: o esplendor do sol poente.^{[3][18][19][1]}
2. Magnificence, pomp, luxury: Os convidados admiraram o esplendor do palácio.^[3][18][1]
3. Greatness; the highest point of something, its moment of glory or prosperity.^[18][15]
4. (figurative) Fame, glory, lustre.^[19]

Word family

• esplendoroso

Related words

• esplendecência
• esplender
• esplendidez
• esplêndido
• resplendor
• Latin splendor

Usage notes

The plural esplendores is pronounced with closed /o/, and is spelt like a form of the rare verb esplendorar.^[18][20]

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 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. esprandor
3. ^ a b c d e Houaiss, Antônio; Villar, Mauro de Salles (2001), Dicionário Houaiss da língua portuguesa, Rio de Janeiro: Objetiva, p. s.v. esplendor
4. ^ a b c Cunha, Antônio Geraldo da (2010), Dicionário etimológico da língua portuguesa, 4th ed., Rio de Janeiro: Lexikon, p. s.v. esplendor
5. ^ Nascentes, Antenor (1966), Dicionário etimológico resumido, Rio de Janeiro: Instituto Nacional do Livro, p. s.v. esplendor
6. ^ Meyer-Lübke, Wilhelm (1935), Romanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., Heidelberg: Winter, p. 8165
7. ^ Estraviz, Isaac Alonso, Dicionário Estraviz, https://estraviz.org, p. s.v. esplendor
8. ^ Rey, Alain, ed. (1992), Dictionnaire historique de la langue française, Paris: Le Robert, p. s.v. splendeur
9. ^ Glare, P. G. W., ed. (2012), Oxford Latin Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press, p. s.v. splendor
10. ^ de Vaan, Michiel (2008), Etymological Dictionary of Latin and the other Italic Languages, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 7, Leiden; Boston: Brill
11. ^ 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. esplandor
12. ^ a b Centro de Linguística da Universidade de Lisboa, CTA – Corpus de Textos Antigos, https://teitok.clul.ul.pt/cta, p. s.v. esplendor
13. ^ a b Silva, António de Morais (1813), Diccionario da lingua portugueza, 2nd ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Typographia Lacerdina, p. 1, 763
14. ^ Vieira, Frei Domingos (1871–1874), Grande Diccionario Portuguez ou Thesouro da lingua portugueza, 5 vols., Porto: Ernesto Chardron e Bartholomeu H. de Moraes, p. 3, 358
15. ^ 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. esplendor
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. esplendor
17. ^ Figueiredo, Cândido de (1899), Novo diccionário da língua portuguesa, 1st ed., 2 vols., Lisboa: Tavares Cardoso & Irmão, p. 556
18. ^ a b c d Ferreira, Aurélio Buarque de Holanda, Novo dicionário Aurélio da língua portuguesa, digital edition, p. s.v. esplendor
19. ^ a b Dicionário Priberam da Língua Portuguesa, Lisboa: Priberam Informática, https://dicionario.priberam.org, p. s.v. esplendor
20. ^ 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. esplendor